Best drink for 2011!

During Christmas in Chengdu I had the chance to taste a new easy drink: warm coke with ginger. Since then, once back home, I have been making it almost every evening!!! It is a little cheating, since I tried the drink so close to the end of the year and actually made it mainly these extremely cold days, in 2012.. but who cares!

I love ginger, also it is very good for my rheumatoid arthritis.

Food and herbs according to Chinese medicine and traditions categorize as cold or warm, according to the effect they have on the body. Rheumatoid arthritis for Chinese medicine can present different aspects: factors of Wind, Cold, Heat, and/or Dampness. According to the Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor I visited more often, I am affected by cold factors.

Ginger is a warming food aliment.

..and I see it is also good to fight a cold..

Scavenger Photo Hunt in Chengdu

Thanks to internet (as usual) 潘蕾 and I found a special way to explore Chengdu on Christmas eve and to experience something different: a 3 hour long Scavenger Photo Hunt throughout the city.

We formed up a 4 people team with 2 “local” girls and got a list of several tasks. Some tasks were difficult (awarding 5 points), some easy (1 point), with all the range in between. In three hours we had to run around the town to creatively complete as many tasks as possible, collect points and then the first three got a price.. not that the fun wasn’t enough!!

The name of out team was “Xmas Fu*K Yeah!!” and one of the most hilarious task was visually “spelling” our team name:

Norwegian design in China?

So many times I have seen in Norway parents carrying children on the back with something called “barnemeis” in Norwegian. So practical for the parents and funny and playful for the child, that felt always like part of the family life, more active than laying in the baby carriage.

So, I see they are trying to copy the model here as well.. or maybe Norwegian copied and improved.. 😉

Deep cleaning!!

Apparently it is a tradition in Chengdu, but in Jin Li Ancient Street area, 锦里古街 (Jǐn lǐ gǔ jiē), there was a special place where for the price of about 20 RMB they would carefully clean your ears, Tāo ěrduo (掏耳朵).

Local “experts” armed with a wide selection of “insertion tools” will astonish you by what they will manage to dig out. And the old woman working on mine I think found special.. “treasures”.. 😉

It was sometimes a weird feeling, especially when using the
instruments in the picture.. and some other time just a little painful!

But after that everything sounded better… more.. Asian!

Sounds from an ancient era

Quiet and relaxing music at Wuhou Temple, 武候祠 (wǔ hou cí) in Chengdu:

Chinglish in Chengdu

I usually to not spend too much time looking for Chinglish signs, maybe because English is not my mother tongue, and I do not master the language! But, just few minutes before leaving the hotel in Chengdu I noticed this sign down here.. and I had to take a picture!!!!

Exactly my thoughts!!!!

FUNNY THING OF THE DAY – A special weekend in Chengdu, and I’ll talk later about that. Saturday night we were at a very nice bar called Lan Town, and I was chatting with the owner, the elf in the picture below.. A very interesting woman! And I could not notice she spoke an extremely nice English, things I told her.. and she replied me: “Also your English is not too bad!“… Touché!! 😉 As I said, an extremely interesting girl!!

Christmas in Chengdu

Tonight 潘蕾 and I will fly to Chengdu, 成都, capital of Sichuan region, famous for panda, an extremely spicy hot pot and food in general, the “gate” to Tibet, and the sad devastating earthquake of 2008.

We got some plans for doing something funny and a little special, different than tourist trip, let’s see if we will manage!!

At the same time, we haven’t planned too much, since most of great things to see are actually out of the city, better for longer stays or resident.. but Chengdu has a quite large Tibetan area and also some older streets and houses in the metropolitan area.

Being the first time for both of us, I am sure it will be great anyway..