Laundry Puppet

Nothing new to report today. Stayed in and did laundry and other chores. Also took the Globe Seven (now Eight) out for a spin on the BC Trail up to Burnaby, as it was beautiful out—crisp, clear, and 15° (59°).

Today we had a dumpling redux at our neighborhood Sichuan restaurant, Chong Qing (重庆). Chong Qing is named after the city of 30 million in Sichuan Province (now its own autonomous municipality), which Westerners might know as Chungking, from the old postal Romanization. 


By the way, these dumplings are green from the spinach in the dough, not from sitting in a fridge too long. And they were/are delish. 


While it looks like we got a lot of food for our thirty bucks, we will get three meals out of it.

Today was lunch (albeit mid-afternoon) so we got soup with our meal. This hot and sour was done perfectly, with fresh peas and shrooms, and carrots, tofu and bamboo shoots, and everything made last minute.

Patty had the Da Qian Chicken (大千鸡), chunks of chicken in a dark brown spicy garlic sauce, which garnered three out of four peppers on the menu heat (辣 la) scale.

I had the Da Qian Tofu (大千豆腐): replace the chicken with  deep-fried tofu. Quite tasty and great for leftovers; I added it to the stir-fried noodles and gailan 芥蓝 (Chinese broccoli) I made for dinner last night.

Happy in anticipation of our meal. Photo by....

...Mr. Xiang Li. Mr. Xiang is normally a happy and outgoing guy, but today, he was particularly effusive. He had to tell us he was heading home for two months starting Thanksgiving (second Monday in October) weekend. Mr. Xiang is from Southeast China, from the province of...

...Anhui (安徽)，famous for...

...Huang Shan (黄山 Mount Huang) renowned surrealistic inspiration for artists and poets.

As reported by the famous Fox Butterfield, for the New York Times in 1981: "Since the eighth-century poet Li Po celebrated the phantasmagoric beauties of Huang Shan, a mountain of oddly-shaped peaks, pines and clouds, the Chinese have considered it one of the wonders of nature."

And many an ink and paint artist used the Huang Mountains for as calligraphic backdrop, this painting from the Qing Dynasty.

I've always wanted to climb the Huang peaks. Okay, I'm a little "home"sick for China.