This morning, I tried the Mongolian milk I bought from the big supermarket RenRenLe. I looked and looked yesterday and could not find any reduced fat milk, so I had to settle for a carton of Mongolian brand milk. When I added this milk to my cereal this morning, I was completely surprised at how delicious it was. This doesn't taste at all like the whole milk we get in the States. It's much more rich and flavorful. I don't know if in China, they have a different breed of cows, or whether it's because they're mongolian cows, or if because the cows still graze on grassland, but I thoroughly enjoyed the fatty milk. There's no way to describe the complexity of taste.
Later in the day, I went to downtown Tianjin, a huge avenue called Binjiangdao. Man, when I got off the subway and saw all these 4 or 5 story shopping malls and wide paved avenues, I was in seventh heaven. THIS was what I expected TJ to be like. It turns out that my university is just really far from the city center, that's why some roads are not paved and buildings look rundown. Binjiangdao totally reminds me of Mongkok in Hong Kong. There's tons and tons of 4 story malls with escalators. In one of the malls, there are hundreds of little shops full of cheap clothing, handbags, shoes, and jewelry. You can bargain with the shopkeepers. In the malls and on the streets, there are little food stands selling stinky tofu, kebabs, ice cream, and fruity iced drinks, just like in Mongkok. There are also tons of chain clothing stores like Kappa, Esprit, Baleno, and Giordano. Most of the brands, although they were priced much higher, were unfamiliar to me; they must be Chinese higher end brands. Because I was afraid to bargain and a lot of the listed prices seemed comparable to the U.S. when converted, I didn't end up buying anything. I figured I had plenty of time here to explore and shop around. Nevertheless, I'm definitely going back to Binjiangdao, it was such a long shopping avenue that I gave up and turned back before reaching the end.
Binjiangdao is also where I tried my first "ma huar" and "goubuli baozi."
Ma huar is this sweetened snack that is fried until completely crisp like a cookie and lightly covered with sesame seeds. It's actually not that great, since I don't like such oily fried snacks. The goubuli baozi is a small bun (bao) filled with pork and steamed in a metal/bamboo steamer. It comes out looking exactly like Shanghai soup dumplings (xiaolongbao), but I was disappointed to find the inside lacking the delicious broth of their Shanghai counterparts. Also, goubuli baos are made with a real yeasted bread dough, not just a chewy wrapper, so there was too much bread and not enough meat or broth. I wanted to take a picture of the baozi and in front of the goubuli sign, but I forgot my SD card. All in all, I'm not blown away by TJ's two most well-known foods so far.
On Tuesday, I went with my new Chinese female friend (whom I met on the trip to Fragrant Mountain), and another English teacher from the Philippines to the big wholesale shopping district of Da Hu Tong. I found out that you can actually get to Dahutong by subway and just walk about 3 blocks. It's much faster and convenient than the bus, which takes over an hour. As you can see, we tried on wigs, feather boas, and lots of silly things in preparation for Halloween. I'm excited about the Halloween party us foreign teachers are hosting on Friday night. I've never been a big Halloween celebrator, but somehow in China, I feel the need to represent and get in the spirit.
