Showing posts with label Travel : China - Yunan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel : China - Yunan. Show all posts

Saturday, July 17, 2010

City of Eternal Spring - Yunan Ethnic Village

5th day, we woke up to a wet morning. Its to Yunnan Ethnic Village, the village houses the 26 nationalities in this province amidst a beautiful landscape garden. The scaled versions of the ethnic groups occupies an area of 7,500 acres where visitors can experience their lifestyles all year round. It rained ~ drizzle nearly the whole trip. Here's some photos of the area. buildings with Chinese elements
in one of the ethnic houses, inside is very much like 'the rumah panjang' of our East Malaysia. the pots are not for show only, something is really cooking and there's this group of ppl really eating in their 'dinning room' . I think the 'staff' lived on this very site as well.clothing with Chinese influence and Thai?a pretty 'Ar se mah' beading smashing troubles away, a belief of one ethnic tribes. Diane had fun smashing bottles!!
and she said she felt a sense of peace after, seems that if you managed to smash the bottles or plates into 'the mouth'-opening the better! the pottery house, does it looked like our yesteryear's Chinese 'kampung' house ? seems that the ethnic women folk are very crafty. There's almost some sort of craft related thingy in every house. This is one of the largest and there's even smaller ones around
We didn't explore all the ethnic houses, only those with significant history were explained to us, yet those that we eventually did stop to have a look were quick and short, throughout the journey, 'Siow Tai' kept signalling us to move on. She is simply trying to get us on time to our next venue.the souvenir stall at the exist. Its a remarkable in sight into these ppl's life


Its our last nite in the City of Spring and dinner this evening was extra special. We were introduced to Yunnan's famous dish, 'Across the Bridge Rice Noodles' or 'Guo-Qiao Mien-Xian' . Like everything else in China, there 's a story of how it became famous. It is said that during Qing Dynasty, there was a scholar who was preparing for his imperial examination. He retreated in an isolated island to study. Every day, his wife would bring him his meal, crossing a bridge. By the time it reaches him, his food was cold. The wife than discovered to keep the meal warm with a layer of oil in the soup.
Interior of the restaurant
appetizer
we were first served with this very hot hot soup in a clay bowl with its condiments separately whereby we are to put everything into the bowl immediately including the rice noodles that looked very much like our 'laksa asam' noodles and treated to an hour long of fabulous ethnic dances, impressive performance and a beautiful package put together. I didn't put up the video here as the waiter and waitress serving us food was sort of interfering with the taping that could not be avoided.Thereafter, there was a mad rush to go on stage when it was announced that we are given 10 minutes to photograph with the dancers. Here is Diane, she managed to pose with 2 ladies after some hesitation.
or three? they are alll so pweeety!!
The next morning, its was Bye! Bye! day.

We woke up this morning to another gloomy wet morning, at 7. 45am we were at the coffee house . Breakfast today for me was this, can you believed that I gained 2 kg by the 3rd day weighing? Scarry!!
I was so glad to have drop 1.5 kg on my last day by watching what I eat during lunch and dinner on the remaining days. Someone in the group said that he gained 7kg! horror! Oh ! did I mentioned that we were a group of 18 ppl on this tour?

We checked out of Horizon Hotel at approximate 10:30am and headed to lunch at 11am, en route to the airport, its another eleven dishes altogether .We arrived at the airport at 12:45pm, our Malaysian tour guide, Derrick was waiting for us at the airport. He had gone ahead of us while we were having lunch to finalize our departing details.

Diane did some last minute shopping, buying her 2nd and 3rd doll at the airportDolls made of wood and dressed in ethnic costume cost double compared to the first one she bought at 'Zi Chai Yi Nan' , the restaurant with beautiful courtyard complete with in house gallery, souvenir shop, a temple and beautiful landscape garden.

An hour and a half after take-off, lunch was served on board our national carrier.

We arrived KLIA at 5;35pm and reach home sweet home at 7:45pm
Thank you for visiting, this ends the final installment of my trip.
I wishe every one a good Sunday!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Yunnan's cusine

I am doing a separate post totally on food from my trip, basically some of the food is either my first encounter of its kind, looked good and pretty or unique in a way or simply because it taste good.

Dinner on the 1st day
A never seen before dish that doesn't taste anything like a vegetables, a very spicy appetizer yet unlike the Koren Kim ChiFragrant Herbal Chicken Soup that tasted very good'Chicken' mushroom, so named because it tasted like chicken
amazing looking, Braised Pork Stew.....overly fatty, never my likingwe thought this was spaghetti, but no.....Yunnan noodles with ham and bacon
AN overall peek onto our table. This is how much food was served at every meal
'lemang' that doesn't taste as good as our 'lemang' ...making us longing for lemang
looked like 'asam laksa' but no thought it was minced meat ball, instead toufu and cabbage in soupa warp that was to go with pork stew
bad pic !! too close , Diane showing the wrap with a slice of roast duck
baby oysters it seems, we thought it was baby octopus

A mushroom feast for lunch on Day 4
This is my favourite lunch of all except for the soup...looked over oily simmer the mushrooms and wait till its cooked, somehow it doesn't looked oily anymore

Dinner - Day 4
Salmon arrived in a golden boat but without any sauce, someone didn't mind thou, LOL Scallop with glass noodles a close up servings of mixed meat including crispy skin roast that had everyone guessing of what bird?!!
sunflower soup - corn soup actually
carrot - I think its made from either vermicelli flour or rice flour, very crispy like keropok but tastelessPumpkin - only looked different in shape, we wonders how this was to be eaten, finally everyone just bite in'Kwai Fei Tofu' - Empress's tofu.....it's tofu wrap , an overly impressive name. The food here seriously looked impressive but some didn't  taste as yummy as it looked.

Lunch, Day 5
Throughout our trip, we are like food taster. Everytime a dish is served and looked unfamilir everyone goes guessing. So, this was served, everyone took a sip and  went, ooooh! cucumber!! one of the three appetizer, this reminded me of 'kimchi', no...doesn't taste like one . Its like drowned in vinegar.
we had this Crispy Duck Roast like every meal the only restaurant that serves us a 'juice' rather than Chinese beer and tea. Some says it tasted familiar...mint? pegaga? some dunno what green grass, we must have lost our taste bud that day, LOL ! someone even guessed 'daun pandan' ! It was Diane who got it right, it's cucumber, LOLBarbecue pork = 'char siew' likethe dish that receives no criticism egg plant, nope! we are not sure but it sure tasted like one there's always a serving of fish and always rather small for a table of 10, however, its the most familiar looking cooking style, the most comfortable dish, yet we tends to debate on its species
seriously, we do not know what this is...we guessed its some kind of herbs a root maybe, boiled to soften it and stir-fried..kinda deliciouswe thot this was 'siew pao' half steamed and half bake?
but the filling tasted like 'red bean' and it didn't taste like a' pao' or 'siew pao' at all...our steam pao - dumpling tasted betterrecognized only the green stuff...nobody could guessed the white rolls, some thought it was fish paste
this was more appetizing, a bit of 'kiam-kiam' (slaty) as if got salted fish, my opinion

This was part of our lunch on the last day. It was also the meal that everyone seems not to go splurging. Can't blame everyone when lunch was served at about 11:30am and some had a late breakfast this morning
We learnt early not to ask the waitress what's been served as they kinda replied mumbling or we can't understand their Mandarin Yunnan accent. Therefore, someone will first attempt the first bite, guessed what it is including its flavour, before the rest of us start indulging especially when the dish looked a bit alien...lol

Thank you for visiting, hope you enjoyed this food tour.