Don’t need much to have fun. With only a trike and their companionship, Keisha and Jaer played outside my apartment in the Philippines with the exuberance and imagination that little kids innately possess, and only few adults hold onto.

Song is “We’re Going to be Friends” by Jack Johnson

Who needs an iphone and fancy shoes?

More Photos.

Using a payphone, how traditional.

Our hosts thought it amusing to dress us up in the traditional clothing found now at tourist stops, like the southern great wall in Hunan Province.

Parts of China are some of the most remote, at least land farthest away from the sea. But with all of the transportation options now available, it doesn’t seem so far away as it once was. In a way, the distance has gotten smaller.

Even in the height of travel (Spring Festival, when almost everyone travels home, possibly one of the biggest migrations of people on the earth) it’s still possible. Well, you might end up standing for a whole day on a train, and if heavy snow comes and people are stuck well then it was really bad, but even with that it still all works pretty well.

I had to take nearly every form of transportation. Even if it meant drawing a picture of a bus and pointing to the words of the next town I wanted to get to.

Long Distance Bus.

On the train. Each compartment like this has six bed surfaces on each side but during the day or when not sleeping everyone sits at the lowest level.

Local bus in Changsha.

Taxi in Chenzhou.

Local bus in Chenzhou. Which gets pretty crowded.

It took five years and a return to China until I understand the difference.

While eating some pork wontons at a local noodleshop in the cold, two things happened: 1) The food was so warm in the cold air that after I ate it I could breathe steam like a dragon, and 2) There was that taste again. I asked my friend eating with me and discovered, yeah it tastes different than all the meat I’m used to because this pork didn’t taste like pork, it tasted like how pig smells.

Not my favorite meal. But I kept thinking about it and realized sure enough these wontons had a particular earthiness that doesn’t exist in the antibiotic injected slab of boneless meat I pick up at my local grocery store. The smell of dirt. The presence of bones. The skin still attached. These were just parts of the taste. Possibly this taste is most visibly differentiated by seeing the chicken head and all.

This is more present than ever in a local delicacy: stinky tofu. It smells, literally, like shit. I’m pretty sure it might be bathed in manure. But all the locals agree: it smells horrible, but they can’t stop eating it.

It’s possible to tell if there’s a stinky tofu vendor blocks away because it is so fragrant. Other businesses have tried to force stinky tofu vendors away from their own storefronts because it constantly stinks up the place. But the people love it. Certainly an unexplainable craving for that bizarre taste could grow, it just didn’t happen the first and possibly last time I tried it.

I was working and having culinary adventures in China for a while but now I’m back stateside, so expect lots more to come, very very soon! Photos, videos, adventures, games, culture shock, maybe even some gushiness about how much luxury we have in the states.

Seriously though, I might even rank the Chinese food above Thai food. It’s that good.

There’s diversity. I know the stereotype is rice but I ate more rice in the Philippines than in China.

There’s noodles, for about $1-2. If you go to one of the la mian (pulled noodle) restaurants, many of which are owned by the Hui ethnic group from northwestern China. You can watch as they take a slab of very glutenous dough and pull it apart, halving it, pulling it apart, each time doubling the number of strands they have, until there are hundreds of noodles pulled in just a few minutes from a mound. They even have pictures on the wall so you can point out what you want. It works out well because the same photos are at each of these Hui restaurants, so you always know what’s on the menu.

Proud noodle maker

Shy noodle maker.

There’re dumplings, especially good with the peanut sauce, mmmm.

Never before has egg and tomato tasted so good even if this photo doesn’t do it justice.

Five kuài (about 80 cents) will get a spicy chicken sandwich that is as addictive as crack.

Twice I ate food surprise. What is food surprise? A food you eat and later ask, what is this? And Surprise! It’s dog. Which had a very un-chicken like taste. And frog. Which made me want to give up meat altogether, if short lived.

_______________

About the meat. It’s never really the main course like in America. More often it’s added for the taste. I almost feel like a vegetarian, or a meateterian who prefers veggies while here.

Then there’s the fact I never feel full after eating this food. It’s all so light, sometimes a bit oily, but my stomach is a bottomless pit of a black hole stealing away all the veggies and meat and rice and noodles. That’s where chips ahoy comes in. I will intentionally eat cookies after a chinese meal not only because I have the biggest sweet tooth this side of the universe, but because it’s the only thing that adds that heavy layer in my belly and really makes me feel full. The chop sticks weren’t helping this phenomenon, because I would eat bit bit bit, surely slower than with a fork or spoon. But the wood chop stick texture is actually very suited for eating.

The first couple times I ate western food again my belly felt like it was going to burst. Immobilized heart pounding food coma bowling ball in my stomach full the only thing I could do was pass out. I guess I miss Chinese food.

You know those Chinese restaurants in the states? Well, I wouldn’t describe them as authentic. Certainly no egg and tomatoes, but maybe I’ll have to look for my other favorite dish: eggplant. Eggplant?! I still can’t believe it. Never have I appreciated its well cooked purple mushiness until now, shooting from the lowest despicable tastes straight to the top just like Fermina Daza’s taste for it in Love in the Time of Cholera.

That’s one of the things I’m always surprise by when I travel.  I get rid of those preconceived notions of food or people and end up loving the impossible.  Even eggplant.

————

Note: Thanks to chinesefooddiy.com for the photo of eggplant, beijingmadeeasy.com for the egg and tomato, and youtube user jyaki2 for the la mian video.

The local grandmother invited us to sit down in their front yard and offered us some beverages and had a guitar to play too.

My friends and I needed a respite from the sun. When we sat down there was a quick gathering of these curious but shy kids. Only a foot away, had the fence not been there I don’t know if they would have gotten so close.

There were racks and racks and hanging platforms filled with these little dried up fish on the small island of Malapascua.

Photos kindly nabbed from Michelle Müller.

In the stairways and offices (certainly not the editing suites), I’m greeted with a view that stays the same. The only movement is the shifting tide, wind in the fronds, people collecting salty-watered prizes in the sea and a tanker that only seems to drift from one side to the other.

This tanker is always there, and actually makes a good placeholder on the normal flatline horizon. Although I’ve heard rumors it has been leaking oil and has slowly destroyed the coral.

Sometimes there are even two tankers.

The lighthouse flashes in the distance.

Yet the view stays the same.

This man is my primary source for bananas. 1.5 pesos each. Better than the 9 pesos in the canteen where I work.

They’re green but they’re ripe when they’re green, which took some getting used to.

He always says hello and sometimes when he’s had a drink or two he throws in a banana for free.

Rarely do I see him sitting outside of a 20 foot radius from his stand, even at night when the stand is closed and he sits on the front without a shirt.

Once when he ran out of plastic bags (because even if you bought one banana, he would still put it in a small plastic bag) he ran around the corner to get one which turned out to be one from the local grocery store. I try to stay away from all these plastic bags as best I can.

And don’t worry — he already has a copy of a photo I took with him.

I pass two schools on my way to work. Just beyond the schools sits this bench between two trees. After wondering how a tree could grow like that, I admired its simplicity and how naturally it fit.