Later that evening (the power returned at 4pm), I went out for Sichuan hotpot. Everyone in your party sits around a table with burner in the middle. You are brought a big pot with spicy soup/broth/base and if you don't like the spicy stuff, there is a not spicy soup in a pot in the very middle of the big pot. The group orders an assortment of things you want to put in the "soup" - shrimp dumplings, lamb, pumpkin, potato, lotus, beef, mushrooms, noodles, etc. You use your chopsticks and grab a piece of food once it has had a chance to cook in the "soup" then you dip it in an oil mixture that you put together yourself (oil with garlic and other sauces). It was a fun time and a good experience. However, I'll have to admit that the spicy part of the pot was potent...made me cough and tear up a bit, but I tried it! (more than once) And then stuck to the not spicy pot.
I visited English corner again this week and enjoyed talking to a friend that works at my school who also attends English Corner. I learned numbers and counting fingers in Chinese, I only remember 6,8,10 though.
Finally, what you've all been waiting for...I got to visit the panda reserve on Saturday! A family on staff who have a son in my class took me with them to the reserve and 2 other visitors to the area came as well. It was a beautiful place, did not feel like a zoo of sorts and the pandas seemed happy, not caged up.
I even watched one scratch its butt on a tree trunk! hahaha! My favorite part was watching a few toddler pandas up in tree tops, just chillin up there. I'm not too sure how they planned to get down without falling though. I got to see a 2 month old panda in an incubator and some other baby pandas in a big crib. SO CUTE!!!
-kaitlin
1 comment:
LOVE the panda photos!
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