Snackin' in Beijing (Wangfujing Snack Street)

Yeah, so the real semester and classes began on Monday.


Snooze


Look!:

A visitor during speaking-class the other day
- I wanted to put it on a skewer, fry it and eat it

Hanging out with my BFF

Today I brought Isak, a fellow Norwegian classmate and the most like-minded guy I know when it comes to try eating weird stuff, to the famous snack street in Wangfujing, together with Lotte (not that like-minded, but great moral support)

Today autumn decided to arrive
And suddenly it went from skimpy-shorts-and-tank-top weather
to rainy and cold
scarf-and-jacket-I-wish-I'd-brought-wool-socks-from-Norway weather

They were still squirming

Lotte getting everything
on tape

Here's a video, made by Lotte, of Isak and I snackin'.

(In Norwegian/Chinese with English subtitles)

My skewer of.. ehr, yeah, I'm not sure
It was small and birdy-like and I ate it all;
heads, bones and everything

Those bugs to the left were actually pretty tasty,
didn't get around to buy a skewer with centipede, though
Pity.

Stinky tofu

Stinky tofu (chòu dòufu) was what I'd been most curious about trying. I'd heard about it before I came to China and seen some videos on youtube of people eating it.

Stinky tofu is fermented tofu, and its smell is, oh SO vile. It smells like.. it smells like.. oh, I can't even put it in print. It's the utmost disgusting smell I've ever experienced. I can hardly imagine that a rotting corps would smell any worse.

Here's our own little youtube video (in Norwegian) of our stinky tofu virginities being taken, shot by Lotte:



Isak didn't like it at all. But I actually thought it was alright. I don't even like tofu that much and think that for the most part it tastes like what I imagine paper mache would taste like. But as long as you didn't inhale as you ate it, it just tasted like fried tofu served with a salty sauce. If I actually liked tofu in general, I'd probably find it pretty delicious.

But I don't, so now I've had it, and I do not feel the need to eat it again.

These babies were not particulary appetising. They were hard to chew and the body was filled with some nasty, mildly bile-flavoured goo.

Isak

Eatin' feet and Memory Lane

My breakfast this morning
- papaya and some kind of freshly made juice
that must have been very healthy
because it sure tasted like it was
*shuddering*

Today I went to my old Thai language school to say 'hi' to my old teachers.

Unfortunately, after almost three years away, most of my favourite teachers aren't there anymore.

Still, it was very nice to talk to the principal and those of my old teachers still left, and I was greeted like a long lost daughter.

No wonder, really. I went there for a full year, which is seemingly pretty rare, since most people only take a few courses, and I was much younger than everyone else (being 18 and 19 years old), and I'm a half breed, which is always popular in this country.

But, also generally speaking, I'm quite the character!

Everyone kept nagging about how skinny I'd gotten and that I looked great. But they also said that I had "grown taller", so I think I might just take it all with a pinch of salt.

I didn't take any photos inside the school or of the teachers, since I suspected (with great reason) that it would only wind up being pictures that I hate, but Asians love, where everyone pose awkwardly in every damn photo (with the obligatory "peace" sign).

I'd rather not waste the energy of taking them, just to rapidly delete them afterwards. Such photos are a violation to any camera, unless they're taken with irony.

But one of the teacher sure took enough of them with her iPhone. I warned her that if she tagged me on Facebook, I would come back and beat her.

Just kidding.

Not! *voice of Borat*

I'm still fighting jetlag, and I've spent most of the day feeling almost hung over.

Ze lunch:
Noodle soup with egg noodles and
"various types of fish meatballs", which also can be translated
into "various types of mystery meat"

Feeling pretty beat I went home and..

.. got some sun on my pale chicken skin.

Mmm, 30 degrees celsius and a mild breeze. I almost feel proud that I didn't fall asleep.

Hmm.. and if you stretch to look over the edge?

Nope, no tropical holiday paradise in sight,
just good ol' Bangkok
Yay!
Surely not a sight for sore eyes,
but still

In the evening I went to the part of town where I lived three years ago, called On Nut.

Walking down (memory) lane to meet up with my friend Gee for dinner, as I passed by the internet joint I used to go to every day I glanced through the window, and I met the eyes of the woman who used to work there then, and still does.

If I talked about being greeted like a long lost daughter before..

That's one of the many things I love about Thailand: It's the complete opposite of Japan in so many ways.

In Japan it is really hard to connect with people, especially when they are working. Being very well trained (like a dog) they stay in this robot-like mode, only sticking to their speech which they've memorized with much perserverence.

Try to joke with a Japanese waitress and you'll get a confused look in return. Better yet, she'll just repeat her speech.

It's like something I read a long time ago in a blog belonging to a Canadian guy who's been living in Japan for 20 years: after going to the same gym in his neighborhood for several years, the employees would still greet him every day like it was the first time he came to the place.

I don't know. It's just so much nicer with warm people, you know?

During the year I lived in Bangkok all alone, I naturally created some kind of relationship with the people who became a part of my everyday life. Like the internet-lady, whose name I don't even remember, still remembered me so well even after three years.



It may seem like she's almost like a surrogate mother to all of the kids who seem to spend all their time when not at school at that internet joint, playing games online.

This 12-year-old girl, still in her school uniform was snackin' on some delicious..


.. fried chicken feet.



Yum, yum, give me sum!

I was so lucky to have a.. ehr.. toe. And you're supposed to chew and eat the hole toe, bones and all - 'cause there's really nothing else to it, just chicken feet skin and bone.

M, m, mmm. I can see why they might eat it for the potentially nutritious calcium conent of it, but just as a snackity-snack?

Uh-uh.

You know I don't really like something when I refer to the potential nutritional content as a response immidiately when having tried something for the first time.

Like my first time trying natto (fermented beans) in Japan (click the link to go to the blog post), where I diplomatically managed to studder in Japanese that I thought that "one would be very healthy, if eating natto everyday".

Luckily I'd just bought some iced coffee, so I could flush it down and not choke. Which again reminds me of the time I was misled to have mouthful of squid sushi in Japan.

Beer!
(Pronounced 'Sing', thank you very much)

Please notice Gee's highly fashionable Silly Bandz,
an animal (or in this case cloud) shaped rubber band,
which currently is super popular among
kids in Norway
And Belgium, obviously.
'And' to Gee

Gee and his sweet girlfriend
who teaches psychology at one of the city's universities

Chicken paneng
(140 NOK at Rice Bowl in Oslo, 8 NOK 'in' Thailand)