Rice is Nice

Tunxi is actually not a bad place. The town center, near where we were staying, has a lot of old timber buildings in the regional Huizhou style. They are white, with some timber facades, and gray stone "horsehead" eaves. Old buildings are hard to come by in Chinese cities, so this was a nice change. The main old street (Lao Jie, which I think is literally "Old Street") was only for pedestrian and bikes, and families were out in droves playing with their babies and dogs. We had dinner at a Korean restaurant. The food was good, and the rice was about the best we've had on this trip. I'd really expected to eat lots of rice, but good rice, when in China. We've had rice, but sometimes servers are surprised when we ask for it. And when we get it, it's often bad. Occasionally, it's awful. The worst was the rock-hard dishes of rice at the airport in Yichang. It's as if they cook large batches of it and don't want to do anything with it. So we either get rice that is a few hours old and clumpy, or a day old and crusty. The Chinese relationship with rice is odd. It's clearly a staple and recognized as a life-giver. On the other hand, it's considered a filler. If you can afford to not eat rice, which goes hand-in-hand with eating at a restaurant, you don't. So restaurants don't really pay attention to the quality of the rice they serve.

Anyway, today we made our way by bus from Tunxi to Nanjing. I'd expected it to be a nearly empty bus traveling smooth roads, as was the case from Hangzhou to Huangshan. Instead, it was a crowded bus traveling windy, bumpy roads. And the driver was on the horn the whole time. Lanes mean little here. Instead, the size of your vehicle determines when you have right of way. But we got to Nanjing safe and sound and found a great hotel for not a bad price. It's near the university, which apparently has a ton of foreign students. So we went to a Mexican restaurant nearby. The restaurant has outdoor seating (but that was full), and several smaller rooms. It really looks like a Mexican restaurant. The food was not especially good, but we were happy to have cheese for a change, and drank margaritas. There were a lot of Westerners in there, including large groups of college students. There were some Chinese musicians playing guitar (some Tracy Chapman was featured), and eventually, they were joined by a young American woman from Minnesota who sang and played guitar. It was all pretty folksy, but a nice dose of the West and change of pace.