Monday 25th July

Another hot and hazy day today, unsurprisingly. LOH flopped around like a dead fish for a bit, proceeded to wake me up, then flopped very much dead once more.

For breakfast, a delicious if slightly odd cream cheese bagel, with peach yoghurt and a strawberry-ish flavoured fake Yakult. Mmm, the chemicals.

We visited the same restaurant we had in the last couple of days, the one with the dying/dead fish and interesting ideas on television programmes. The fish were still dying and eyed us through the windows with depressing looks, especially those flatfish with their crooked mouths. Oh Lord I make it sound even worse. Afterwards, we visited Tang Yi, a very famous local touristy area which was sort of like a department store where you can buy anything from gifts and local memorabilia, to stationary and books, to designer bags and necklaces, to pretty much anything. Just much more crowded and with way too many animal statues outside to the point where it was starting to get a little freaky. It didn’t even have anything to do with the store itself, it just made the place look like either Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory or Disneyland. I much prefer the latter, to be honest. Here we bought brooches, antique books, fans, traditional paper lanterns, hairpins and also rubbers which smelt of different assorted fruits. All for a friend. Look how giving I am. Someone should give me an award or something.

Ok, this isn’t a duck from the actual restaurant, but another which I can tell you about later. But it also carved ducks in front of you, as do most of the restaurants in China. It’s the same thing, is what I’m trying to say.

Dinner was Peking duck at a famous duck restaurant chain called Quan Jude (you may have heard of it, it’s quite famous) which performs the carving in front of you instead of in the kitchen, as well as serving other, more delicate areas of said dead duck such as the heart, head and liver. There’s also jellyfish because why not, and I’m pretty sure that was tripe in the mushroom soup. Whatever the case, they make pretty good duck rolls which are succulent but not dry. Why is that making my mouth watering? It’s eleven o’clock, I’m tired.

Next up: monkey business.

~MW

NB: Hope you all had a safe and merry Christmas this year. 2016 has been pretty hard for everyone, but hey! we’re still here after it all. And we should be proud of that. So whatever horrors 2017 has in store, I think we’re ready :). Happy 2017 to all my dedicated readers!