Order Up!

Are you a snake? If so, it's your year! 

The Chinese New Year is just around the corner and 

there is so much to do to get ready 

for our two week vacation that starts Friday. 

Two of Andrew's siblings, Isaac and Rebekah,

 are coming to visit and travel with us.

We are so excited! 

We will be spending time in Shanghai, Yangshuo, Xingping, and Sanya. 

We are planning on seeing a lot of mountains, caves, rice fields, and warm beaches. 

I'm planning on it being the best two weeks of my time here in China! 

I don't know if I'll be able to post while on vacation, if not there 

will be an abundance of posts in two weeks time.

Hopefully this cold I'm fighting off is gone soon.

Okay, enough about my excitement. 

I had a few pictures on my computer of some food we eat here in China. 

We have been going to the restaurant below nearly everyday

and sometimes twice a day. Unfortunately, they received a 

red frowny face on some sort of

health/sanitary code but that doesn't 

stop us because their food is some

of the best we've had in town.

The daughter who is an amazing chef. Her son is really cute too. He's probably 4 years old. 

They are a really nice family. I can tell they really love each other.

There's an elderly mother, 

(she serves the cafeteria food to the construction workers who come on lunch break) 

an elderly father,

(he cleans the tables, serves soup, restocks the rice bowl, and changes the tv channel to the good stuff)

a son and his wife 

(these two take orders and also deliver to-go food on their motorized scooters)

and a daughter 

(who is pictured above, she cooks and others will jump in to help when necessary)

They are always happy to see us and

are patient with our lack of Chinese skills.

They even gave us a menu so we could take it home to translate.

I asked a friend of mine to translate it which saved a lot of time.

But most of the stuff on there didn't sound too good.

At least now we know not to point at the 

pork bone soup, pig intestines, or duck stomach. 

di san xian. I don't know the literal translation but it's a 3 (san) vegetable dish: bell pepper, eggplant, and potato. Andrew's new favorite dish.

Sliced pork and bell peppers. The meat is really good. 

Kung pao chicken. I can't remember if it looks like this in Americanized Chinese restaurants but this stuff is SO good.

Peas, Sheet Jelly, and mystery green stuff. They didn't have what we wanted so they replaced it with this. Only Wayne tried it. The pile looked the same when we left.

Garlic stems and beef. This is from one of the many Chinese Muslim restaurants where they make hand pulled noodles and have picture menus on the walls.

Chao (chow) Mian. Fried Noodles. Fresh hand pulled noodles. It reminds me of spaghetti. I prefer it the way the "meat stick guy" down the street makes it. He uses soy sauce, spinach, and fried eggs and not a red sauce with random vegetables.