Sooo.... what's for lunch?

Fried ice cream with cucumber and tomatoes. Never had it before, and not sure I will again.

Fruit salad with ranch dressing.... Not too bad, actually.


Food on the go - little rice things.

Fruit salad with orange mayo-stuff. So gross, I had to try it.


Jiaozi. You can never go wrong with dumplings, right?



Somehow, I thought I'd know what to expect from the food here. But it varies. Generally, I have no idea what I'm eating, and let's just say that a whole box of pepto was not enough.....

Some of the food is awesome, though. The combinations are a bit strange, like ranch or thousand island dressing on fruit salad, and cucumbers and tomatoes to accompany fried ice cream. Or corn and peas on pizza. Stuff like that makes me stick to the Chinese food. I just say "Wo yao yige, yige, yige - bu yao bing, xiexie" (pointing to pictures with no english words). "I'll have one of that green thing, that mushy thing, and that purple thing in a glass - no ice, thanks".

So I figured out that cucumber juice is pretty good, taro ice cream and mung bean ice cream are awesome, cocktails generally suck - especially with no ice, and don't ever get the clear jelly thing. And oh yeah - never, ever, drink the water or have ice. Ever.

And I'm getting the hang of haggling. You can haggle for just about anything, unless it's in a store like Walmart, a restaurant, or a government-owned store. One of the first expressions our tour guide taught us is "tai gue le!" (too expensive!) and yesterday, our professor officially taught us how to haggle in Mandarin. haha. Usually on mornings, i visit the same newsstand outside the language center, say "wo yao mai liang binde kuang quan shui" and i really do get two mineral waters for 3 yuen! It took him a couple days to understand my poor pronunciation and horrible grammar, though :D

Some interesting expressions:

shuaige = good looking guy
qing wa = ugly boy (literally "please vomit" but used to mean "frog")
mein'u = good looking girl
kong long = ugly girl (literally "dinosaur").
wo za ni = I'll smash you!
qing rang yi xia! = please move it! / please get out of the way! (I use that alot. heheh).