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Rice, rice, rice is the staple food of the Chinese and we’ve been eating it in abundance here. Having expected to be eating dog or chicken feet, the meals have been more what we’re accustomed to in Britain, although unfortunately, there’s been no crispy duck pancakes. We visit two different restaurants each day and sit in groups of ten around big, glass, round tables with a moveable round glass plate in the middle. About ten dishes are normally brought out to us; there is an abundance of food. Most people are getting the hang of using chopsticks but it can be infuriating when you’re trying to serve yourself and pick up a fragrant piece of pork and it keeps on dropping off, much to the glee of the waiter standing by.
Our first hotel was quite comfortable but we all immediately noticed the smell of smoke everywhere. Evidently, there isn’t a no smoking ban here in China and they even smoke at the dinner table and the corridors and rooms have a lingering smell of nicotine.
One of the highlights so far has been the Chinese acrobatic show, which we went to see on Thursday night. We were entertained by contortionists, acrobats, magicians and the climax was the five men on motorcycles inside a metal sphere, riding round it, all at the same time. There were a few of us holding our breath waiting to see if they would exit the sphere alive.
After visiting the Jade Budda Temple, where we saw many statues and watched worshippers burning incense, we were treated to a Chinese tea tasting ceremony. We sat on long tables and each one had a lady making and serving the tea. Each table had cups the size of thimbles and a matching round small cup. One of them was for smelling and the other was for drinking. Before the tea is made, the leaves have to be washed and then they have boiling water poured on them and we learnt that the leaves can be reused.
We tried a few varieties of tea, each with different properties. The first one was to wake us up and was refreshing and tasted slightly of coconut and then we had a green tea and ginger tea. Many of us bought tea to bring back home as well as dainty, hand painted tea sets.