Wednesday Dim Sum in GuangZhou

Simon took for a Dim Sum lunch. Dim Sum is Cantonese. It is essentially like going to a buffet or smorgasbord. There was a long counter behind which cooks were preparing different types of food. One section was where they had noodles and soups, another all kinds of dumplings, another where they made Chinese pancakes. The it worked was you had a ticket. You went up to the counter with your tray and pointed to what you wanted and handed them your ticket. They would stamp it indicating the food you got. It was nice to sample a large variety of various kinds of food.

There is a few more things to keep in mind about China...they don't seem to drink much. And when they do drink, it is pretty much tea. If you are served a refreshing glass of water...it is warm (and sometimes hot). There is NEVER ICE in ANYTHING. However, if you order a Coke or Sprite, it does often come chilled. There are NO DIET SODAS. They even look at you funny if you try to order a diet anything. I'm not sure if it has a negative connotation or that with so many steps and so many bicycles there is much need for diet cola.

We got back to our table with our food, order a large bottle of Coke and dug in. I was proud of the girls for being rather adventurous. We had shrimp dumplings, a Chinese pancake (thin layer of dough, peanut butter and a bunch of sugar...it was delicious), a sticky rice, pork and mushroom wan ton, hand made noodles and wantons, pork wantons and steamed bread with sausage in the middle (aka pig-in-a-blanket). Half the fun was watching the cooks prepare the food and seeing all the exotic varieties.

After we finished lunch we went downstairs to the main floor. There they had their fresh food market...as you can see from the takes, it was so fresh it was still swimming. They had exotic things like fish heads (as you see in the picture), water beatles, eel, squid, crab and ALLIGATOR. It was a very interesting exposure to some pretty wild stuff that people actually eat.

In our discussions we learned some interesting things about Simon. He is married and has 1 child in kindergarten. He owns a travel agency and seems to have been working with Executive MBA groups and tries to focus on business clients. He is still doing a lot of work as a guide for adoptive families. He is an interesting tid-bit. Simon grew up in a 400 SF house...that's right, 400 square feet. I think many people in the States have closets bigger than that. Because of the small space and that they were poor, Simon slept on the floor on a mat. He said he sufferers today from rheumatism as a result. But can you imagine having your whole family live in 400 SF!? To cure this, he explained doctors treat poisons with poisons. So, he has had to drink snake blood before as a remedy. He offered some to Linda to help her knee, but she declined.

Another thing we saw today wer A LOT of weddings. We learned that weddings are chosen on days that are predicted to have good fortune for weddings. Days have fortunes. Some days are good for business ventures, for families staying together, etc. There is apparently a book, Simon referred to it as yellow pages, that indicates/predicates the fortune for future days. It sounds sort-of-like our farmer's almanac. In any case, when planning a wedding you consult the yellow pages to find a fortunate day and book it...and likely will contend with many others who have booked that forecasted fortunate day.