How many dumplings can you have in a day?

Yes...there are still China posts! I realized that if I don't finish posting these, I will never get them done. Enjoy!

Friday, May 5th 2006
If you remember, when we first got to Xi'an we visited the Great Goose Pagoda (also known as Big Goose Pagoda in Chinese). Naturally, if you have a 'Big' one, there must be a 'Small' one. Hence, today we visited the Small Goose Pagoda.


See...the first characted in Chinese (from Left) on the sign says "small"


Courtyard; that's a rice blending machine? well, maybe more like rice crushing machine


This building houses a bell (photo courtesy of WW); this is called the Dragon tree and if I remember correctly, it is about 800 years old

If you think the Small Goose Pagoda is just a miniature of the Great Goose Pagoda, you are wrong. You still have to c-l-i-m-b it. And that was just exactly what we did. Though, this one's a little different...and you'll see why.


Diagram of pagoda construction


This one's for shorties...like moi
So, climbing this pagoda is a little different. The height of each floor decreases as you keep going up. On each floor, you have windows (by the time you reach the higher floors, they are more like pigeon holes) on two sides of the pagoda. When we first started out, we could walk to the door-height window and look out. Soon, you had to bend and watch your head, and later (if you're like Wang Wei who's about 6'), you would start looking like a prawn...or shrimp.


Sorry...we didn't use a flash. But the picture on the left was taken on the 3rd floor, and the one on the right probably on the 6th.


By the time we reached the 8/9th floor, we were crouching.


Once you got up to the highest floor, you can choose to climb a 90 degree stairway, get out thru a trap door...


to see a polluted view of the city of Xi'an. I hope you get better weather when you visit. It's also a little cloudy today.

The Ultimate See-No-Eat (or even touch!) Food
Alright...I have seen a lot of unappetizing (is there such word?) food around the world. But this has made it to the top of my list. This man was selling some kind of caramel-looking candy outside the Small Goose Pagoda.

What he does is this: He starts with making a tube out of the candy liquid. Then he places it in his mouth and starts blowing. No, there is no stick, no straw, nothing. He puts the candy in between his lips, blows and shapes it into animals and then ties it off at the end.
Care to taste someone else's saliva? You've got to pay for it too.


...not so cute...

Drum and Bell Towers

Situated in the city center of Xi'an, they were built in 1380 and 1384 respectively. In ancient times, the drum that was housed in the tower was used to tell the time, and was struck once every day at dusk.

Bell Tower

The building is surrounded by intricately crafted panelled doors, which convey stories of legendary people


Managed to catch a cultural music performance (photo courtesy of Wang Wei)



You've got to ring the bell three times.


City view from the top


Walking thru the ancient city towards the drum tower; market

Drum tower



Check this out!

Each of these drums have different functions. They are labelled according to the weather and season - eg: "rain", "wind" and even "harvest" (i believe)


Lanna is posing in front of the biggest drum in the world.

Exhibition in the drum tower:


Food Food Food
It's lunch time again, and we're back at the food market. Okay, there's got to be a proper name for it but I can't find it in the DK guide book and online. So I'll just have to ask Ren and add it in another time.


Lunch time crowd; these grilled-food stalls are everywhere...and they offer everything


...even goat's leg...is that what it is?; candy floss; huge bread


...yes, they do display the raw meat before cooking them; fried dumplings


butcher; grilling device; anyone for goat's head? poor thing...


that's a cooking pot believe it or not; even larger bread/wrap


we had to have our grilled lamb again (trust me, eventhough the stalls may look unkempt, there is something about the grilled lamb, it's the spice they use, absolutely delicious!); No "PLUMP JUICE" today


See my smug face? It's because of what I have in the mouth

DUMPLINGS!
When in Xi'an, you've got to try their SIU LOONG PAU (or just called "bao zi" in China). Xi'an is famous for their paus. Apparently we're in the right place. There was a line outside the entrance into this 5-storey restaurant. And it was PACKED inside! But...it was worth the wait.



Queue; Siu Loong Pau dipped in sauce; we had three baskets of them. Be very careful when you eat these paus. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that there is soup wrapped with the meat inside the dumpling...and it is HOT. The trick is to bite it gently on one side so that you can extract the soup before eating the dumpling.

More dumplings!
Ren invited us to visit her aunt and uncle, whom she hasn't seen in 6 years. Her aunt said she was going to make us some dumplings for dinner. Well...it was not "some" dumplings. It was "a lot of" dumplings!

We got there at 5pm. They live about 15 minutes away from the city center in a tiny flat with several other relatives. There is nothing like visiting the locals when you're visiting new grounds. You learn and observe so much of their lifestyle, it beats reading books and watching documentaries anytime.


We helped make dumplings (that's Ren and her aunts); dumpling ingredients; that's my hand...I guess my face didn't make the cut


They even made their own wraps from scratch; can you guess how many dumplings they made? Each plate had about 30. That's 120 dumplings on our table - plus more in the kitchen. No, obvoiusly, we didn't eat them all.

Stuffed. Called it an early night.