Wedding Photo's

Some of you might have already seen some of the wedding photo's we took on Facebook. If not, here is another batch. We don't have anything like this(as far as I know) in the USA. In China, before your wedding, you take photo's dressed in different costumes. I'm not sure if they do this in other Asian countries but I have a feeling they do. They all seem to love to dress up in Cosplay outfits, I would think this would be right up there alley! For different prices, you chose how many photo's you want and then look through a book of outfits, choosing a certain number you like. We chose 180 photo's, 5 different outfits, 6 different locations to have the photo's taken in. Then out of the 180,  we chose 54 of them for our wedding ceremony(some people chose over 1000 photo's which takes several days!!). Also, out of the 180, they turn about a dozen of them into different size pictures in frames that we are then able to put in our home, hang on our wall, etc. We got up early in the morning, met the people at the wedding shop, and they drove us out to a large building where the inside was decorated in over a dozen different layouts. You are led to your own personal room where you have two assistants; one that does your make-up and the other to help you dress. You are also given your own personal photographer. We lucked out because our photographer usually only takes photo's for people who spend over 10,000 yuan but since I was an "American," he wanted us to have the best. Below is a sample of some of the photo's we took. I am preparing myself for all you comments!! :P

I feel like in this photo, all I need is a hat with a feather in it and a nice gaudy cane to complete my pimp ensemble!

Hilarious!!

I was messing around on line and came across this picture. I couldn't stop laughing!!! Just thought I'd share!

Babela's Kitchen

We meet Andi's friend and her husband the other day in Hefei for lunch. They decided to go to a cheap western style restaurant that is quite popular here in China called Babela's Kitchen. Not everything on the menu was bad as they had some typical pasta dishes(the restaurant is trying to go for an Italian theme), salads, pizzas, etc. However, there are some that make no since but apparently are very popular here. Looking at this menu gave me great confidence in opening a restaurant here.

This was the cover to the menu. Menu's here in China are very different then what we receive in America. Here, they are usually quite thick and always have pictures of the food unlike our menu's where there is only a description. I have also been to one place where there were no menus. Instead, you were led to a large display window where most of the dishes were already prepared and wrapped in plastic, allowing you to choose which ones you wanted.

The menu was formatted similar to our menu's however desserts were at the beginning. After trying that horrible chestnut cheesecake in Shanghai, I decided to stay away from these as well.

They had an appetizer section with mostly fried items. Notice the "cornflakes" aka tortilla chips at the top.

"The Wild Germ Hates Soup with Crisp Skin." This one I had no clue on! When Andi read it in Chinese.....Mushroom Soup! I have found that here in China, there are usually a mistake or two when something is translated into English. I have seen it on menu's, advertisements, and T-shirts. One of the best T-shirts I saw was on a girl in Shanghai. The T-shirt read "Whore Sucking Cherries!" I really wish I had gotten a picture of the shirt. :p

At first I thought this one was kinda weird but then I realized it's somewhat a play on Waldorf Salad.

 Sauerkraut Risotto. I've put a lot of things in risotto but never sauerkraut.

I have no clue what Germany Sauce it and didn't really want to find out! The sausages look like breakfast links, huh?

The top dish of "Assorted Meat Deluxe" seems like something Americans would like; it's all fried!

I took a picture of these because there definition of "Omelette" is more like scrambled eggs on top of rice. If I would have ever given my old chef Todd Winer an omelette that looked like this, he would have sent the whole plate flying back to me! :p

The famous "Fruit Puff Pizza" Andi had told me so much about. Banana's, mango, and I think pineapple. Gross!

You can also get it "Hawaiian" style where they cover it in what looks to be mayonnaise. The "Mixed French Fries" pizza looks a little strange to me but I'm sure we do this somewhere in America.

Japanese style comes with dried bonito flakes on top. You'll notice in all the pictures of pizza, the crust is super thin. When I looked closely at it, I think they use some type of puff pasty like dough as it seems very brittle.

Andi ordered the Seafood Curry with Omellete. The omellete was a very thin crepe on top of a small mound of rice. The curry sauce however wasn't that bad.

Since most of the items on the menu didn't appeal to me, I went with "Hot and Spicy Beef with Rice and Vegetables." I figured how could I go wrong with these three main components in Chinese culture. Well, it went very wrong.; it was like eating mouthfuls of air. There was very little chili oil on the bottom of the bowl which didn't add any spice. The carrots were close to small rocks as they hadn't been blanched long enough. There was no flavor at all, even from the beef. Just bland and boring. However, most Chinese people don't really like strong flavors so I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. On the other hand, I don't think I'll be going back to Babela's Kitchen anytime soon!

Trip to Wuhu

Over the past weekend, we took a trip to Andi's mother's hometown of Wuhu. We visited with Andi's uncles, aunts, and cousins, went out to dinner several times and played lots of Mahjong. We didn't get to do much site seeing due to the fact that the heat was unbearable.

A couple of sites by a place called Mirror Lake. I'm pretty sure it received it's name because of photo's like the one I took above.

Picture of a cool looking dragon we saw while walking through a park.

Andi next to two fat little Buddha monk statues.

Andi's uncle knew I liked spicy noodles so he took us to a very small place in a crowded little alley. He ordered for me spicy beef and tofu. It was sooooooo good!! The noodles were drenched in a bright red chili oil and had hints of star anise and another herb I just couldn't place. It was almost like cinnamon because it gave the entire dish a hint of sweetness. I have dreamed of these noodles for several nights now! :P

We then went back to Andi's Uncle's house and started to play Mahjong. Real Mahjong is nothing like what we play in the USA where we just match up tiles of the same number or color. It's kinda like someone built that game for Americans because they thought we could never grasp this game. It's very similar to gin rummy because you have to make runs of the same suit or three of a kind of the same tile. Every province has it's own style and rules of how to play from Hong Kong to Beijing to Wuhu. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes very addictive. Andi's dad and uncles will stay up all night during Chinese New Year and just keep playing. 

After Mahjong and dinner we took a walk along the river. While we walked, we turned a corner and there was this huge pagoda lit up against the backdrop of buildings. It was very cool to see since it was the only thing within the area giving off a substantial amount of light. We plan to return to Wuhu when we come back to China to live and hopefully I can see more of the city when it's cooler.

Hefei Market

There are two different types of markets here in China. There are the ones like we have; Shaws, Safeway, Food Lion, etc. and then there are REAL markets. It's similar to our farmers market style but different in what they sell.

I never would have known this market was here unless Andi's mother took us there. It's off the main road, somewhat hidden behind buildings. The place consists of small stalls where vender's setup there goods. The day we went there, the entire place was dirty and muddy because it had just rained. I just called it ambiance!

This stall had many different spices and herbs. There were at least half a dozen different peppercorns and chili's.

A huge basket of quail eggs. In America, we keep all of our eggs, whether they are from hens, quails, etc. cold in one form or another. Over here, eggs are left out at room temperature, never put in the fridge.

Pork and chicken are plentiful in the Chinese markets but you have to get there very early in the morning to get beef before it's all gone. There was a little old lady at this stall who was butchering the meat. We pointed to the section we wanted, told her roughly the weigh we were looking for and she hacked it off for us. The only problem with beef here is they submerge it in water to make it weigh more. The piece we had wasn't very red but once we got home and let it sit, the water bled out and it slowly regained some of it's color. However, when I tried to give it a hard sear in the pan it was next to impossible.

Next we went hunting for chicken. The stall had many chickens out for display, allowing you to pick and choose which one you liked.

Once you find the chicken you want, the woman cuts it open, removes some of the innards, and asks you which of the others you would like to keep.

Then we went looking for shrimp. You can hear in this video Andi and I discussing how her mom didn't like one guy's shrimp as he had many dead ones. They have just about everything you can think of here and some stuff you never thought of! You'll also notice that a couple of the fishes were "sleeping!" :p

Hello "Mr. Turtle"

Bucket O' Frogs

All the vegetables in the market are super fresh, most being picked just the day before. They had many different types of greens, Chinese celery, lotus root, Chinese string beans, all types of peppers, etc. What they don't have here in China are white onions, only red and others from the onion family: leeks, green scallions, etc.

The fruit here is also amazing! Everything is so fresh that once you get it home, by the next day it's already ripe. In America, we can get dragon fruit but it's very expensive, small, and has almost no flavor. Here they are the size of a small Nerf football and quite juicy. All the stands, like the one above, carry local fruit from around the city.

Large globe grapes.

Giant peaches. Somewhat similar to ours but with the texture more like an apple.

This photo I had to pull from online. These little guys I haven't found in the market yet but they are called Mei Mei or Chinese Plum. They turn them into juice which I have had several times whenever we have a spicy meal. The flavor is tart with a hint of sweetness and has the same color as coca-cola. I really wish we had this in the US as it's quite refreshing.