The name should have been enough… We REALLY like spicy food, we have a jar of Thai hot peppers in fish sauce in the refrigerator at home, we ate our way through Thailand… but this took us to a new level. We arrived in Chengdu by the new high-speed bullet train, it just opened a…
Western Food Gone Wrong
One of the ONLY things we didn’t really enjoy out of the entire trip was a stop for lunch on the way to see the Xi’an Terracotta Warriors. Most of our meals had been served family style and were Chinese food. This is was actually at a beautiful 5 Star hotel with immaculate western style…
Huanglongxi Village
After our visit to the Leshan Stone Buddha we stopped at this village on our way to Chengdu. It is an historic village dating back 1700 years. The village has been restored to its original charm but most of the original buildings have been turned into stores for souvenirs or food. We really enjoyed experiencing…
Leshan Stone Buddha
Thought I would share an observation about China before talking about this excursion. Our tour guide mentioned that in China, they handle plurals of words differently than we do. For example, we say 2 apples, the Chinese say 2 apple. The number 2 implies plural, so adding the “S” is redundant. May explain why Chinese…
Titan Times Hotel Xi’an
Two cities, a cruise, food tour and long, long flights later I’m still working on getting caught up on blog posts. While Chuck was working from an iPad with a keyboard most of my images are here on my iPhone so it’s a slow blogging process whenever we have access to WiFi. Because of a…
Lost Plate Food Tour: Xi’an
Lost Plate Food Tours is an absolute MUST DO when visiting China. Several years ago, when we were visiting Amsterdam, we did another food tour and now look for them everywhere we travel. I found Lost Plate Food Tours online and literally stalked them on Instagram, Facebook, their website, and YouTube! The owner is from…
Dumpling Girls
Xi’an is known for its amazing dumplings, and it’s Dumplings Girls. During the Tang Dynasty beautiful women were curvy and voluptuous and their civilization was prosperous. The images of these dumpling girls are everywhere. Even as a modern day marketing symbol. On our first night in Xi’an we enjoyed the optional Dumpling Dinner. We looked…
Shaanxi, Terracotta Warriors
After a very busy morning and another Over Abundance of food at lunch, we headed out to the Lintong District of Shaanxi China. The warriors were buried with the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Quang in 210 – 209 BC and were buried with him to protect him in the afterlife. They were discovered…
Food Glorious Food
If it’s true that an army travels on its stomach, our tour group is a mighty army. I’m going to look at our food from a bunch of different angles … for any of you reading this who might take offense, sorry / not sorry. First off, this is China, if you’re coming here for…
Xi’an, Small Wild Goose Pagoda
The Buddhist pagoda was built between 649 and 683 for the Emperor Gaozong during the Tang Dynasty and stood 177ft tall. Empress Wu Zetian had the pagoda rebuilt and added 5 new stories by 704. In 1556 it was damaged by an earthquake and 3 stories were lost. It has not been rebuilt since then….