Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya
 
Here is the THIRD of the;
'Uncle Shane Do You Eat Pigs Eyes, Chicken Feet & Bat Wings for Snax' entries.
 
Besides eating Insects, Dogs, Cats, Rats, Bats and anything else that once moved I sometimes manage to squeeze in some normalish snacks when I'm feeling a tad peckish.
 
Almost all of them are found on the typical Chinese three wheeler portable snack shop or eatery. For those who have never been any where in Asia this simply means a three wheeled bike that has been modified into some type of 'portable eatery'. Some can be found grouped together on the same corner most days and/or nights and others travel around the place from hour to hour to find where the hungriest crowds are.    
 
Those who have been to China will understand when I say that food and eating is pretty much a HUGE part of the Chinese life style. For those who haven't visited China then there really isn't much I can say as unless you have been here it really is too hard to comprehend
 
What I mean by this is, I know you think you know how much they can eat!
But the fact is you really don't have any idea!
 
They spend hours preparing it and they then spend hours eating it.
What they do during the in between hours is the reason for this and the following blogs.
 
The Chinese simply snack!
 
Snacks are on every street corner of every city, town and village and don't even get me started on what can be found near bus or train stations and market places. After a huge meal that consists of about twenty courses and a billion bottles of beer, before heading to the next destination my friends will usually head for the nearest corner for snacks!
 
I can't do anything but simply shake my head in disbelief...it's all about SNAX!
 
TODAY
 
Today's menu of snax begins with one you are all familiar with, Chicken Burgers!
 
Yes, even way up here thirteen hours into the rugged wild Fujian mountains one can find four and a half of these little Western Babies! Four of them are China's equivalant of KFC etc such as DICO's and MFC etc and the one I call half a chicken shop is the little family run eatery that I usually go to when I need a chicken fix. The couple that owns it make me feel more like I'm in a local fish N chip shop and not in a Chinese chicken burger eatery.
 
When I walk in I seriously expect him to welcome me with Mumma Mia and then a big kiss on the cheek along with a bear hug!
 
This place is under half the price of the big names and that is why they get all the students from most of the schools in that area. The family is so lovely and treats everyone as if they are their own children. They are into saving energy and unless someone is in there everything is usually turned off except the TV and the only way to know it is opened is if the door is open.
 
This is another favourite of mine after a huge five or so hour ride in the rice fields!
 
Next is a lady I don't have much luck finding when I really want to. Sometimes she can be found in the little lane way opposite the school. She makes an awesome thin pancake type thing with some sort of flower petal in it. I've never come across her when I've been with Joyce or someone who can speak English so I have no idea what the flower petals are.
 
Thirdly is of course a favourite for any Chinese person or foreign person visiting China.
 
Everyone falls in love with dumplings in China. Add some chili, garlic and some vinegar or soy sauce and you have the most awesome snack. Or if you want to make it a meal out of it, add a few more Yuan and you get a bigger bowl.
 
Baby tomatoes!
 
What can I say, these things are very dangerous for me and have been since I arrived in China. Why? For the first year and a half I lived in a tiny farming town and most of the farmers grew these tiny little juicy tomatoes. Therefore bags and bags of them were freely handed out at work. I would get home and promise myself 'just a few' and an hour or so later I would be wondering where they all went.
 
The next day was always bad and when I say bad, I mean very bad.
I was very happy my apartment was about a two minute walk from the classrooms!
 
Lastly is something that is found on many street corners all over China. Some cities, towns and villages will have an entire area set aside for BBQ! Here in Shaowu we have a small corner that has BBQ and soups etc but there are many other corners where you can find one or two portable BBQ people.
 
In my Guangxi town they seriously had three sheds, each several hundred meters long.
They pretty much did away with the 'portable' BBQ people.
Everyone had their own permanent 'space'.
 
BBQ is huge here in China, each Portable BBQ Eatery has is own little grill as part of its modification and offers a huge selection of meats, seafood, tofu and green leafy vegetables. Most of them only come out at night and usually the same people can be found on the same street corners.
 
This is mainly due to there being so many of them.
 
Sadly mine and Luo Wei's favourite seems to have scampered. Most offer a grill with added spices which usually includes a hell of a lot of chili. But we found one that used a hot plate and cooked with an assortment of herbs and spices. This is the one you can see in the in the picture. Most will have a long thin grill filled with charcoal but as you can see this one has a hot plate.
 
These hard to find and the ones I have found since haven't offered the herbs and spices.
 
WALK-ABOUT PHOTOS
 
Today's Walk-about photos were taken while I was walking through some of my favourite little back alley ways that take one though a period of Shaowu's past. These can be found by taking any tiny little lane way between the new glitzy shop fronts. Behind these shop fronts can be found a small maze of these alley ways that are lined with architecture no longer used by the younger generation.
 
Simply close your eyes as you enter and when you open them you have stepped back in time a hundred to two hundred years and some of the elderly that you will find sitting at their front doors look as if they have been sitting there since their house was first built!
 
And once again, lastly at dusk each evening the fishermen take to the river.
 
Just looking at that boat is enough to take you far back in time to when Shaowu used to be a small fishing village and from what I have been told that was about one thousand or so years ago.
 
Beers N Noodles full of freaky snax toya.....shane
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The soundtrack to this peckish entry was the funky 'Wiseguys'
The album was 'The Antidote'.
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