Today we just had a quiet day in Guilin. I was still not feeling
great and I was glad that we had not booked to go on a tour to see
the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces in Longsheng. It would have been
about four hours both ways to get there and that was certainly not
something I felt up to doing today. It is a shame that we have
missed them but I keep on telling myself that it is not a huge loss
at this time of year as the rice is all harvested, the fields will
be full of straw etc etc etc.
We
spent some time just ambling around town and doing a bit of
shopping. I know I have said it before about other countries we have
gone to but it is so frustrating not knowing instinctively where to
go to buy certain things. We needed tissues, as neither of us are
partial to following the Chinese and spitting and blowing our noses
onto the pavement. Even a small thing like this was hard work as we
did not know where to go and when we did find a shop it was down to
charades to make ourselves understood.
Stef has pretty much run out of reading material now so we also
went in search of a bookshop that sold English language books. The
Xinhua bookshop listed in Lonely Planet was easy to find. It was in
a basement and the lighting was very dim fluorescent tubes. They did
have a small English section but Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Pride
and Prejudice were not quite what he was after. He ended up with a
collection of Chinese stories, Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo
Guanzhong. The writer lived in the fourteenth century and wrote
about the period of history known as the Three Kingdoms dynasty (220
– 280AD) which came between the Han and Jin dynasties. It was a time
when China saw a succession of rival kingdoms struggling for power
so we are expecting them to be colourful tales to read.
There is a new central square in Guilin and it is a huge open
space for people to simply wander around and relax in. It makes me
wonder how big Tiananmen Square in Beijing is. This trip will not
take us that far north in China, probably just as well as it is
freezing cold there at the moment.
We stopped for brunch at a UBC coffee shop on the square which
is part of a chain we have seen elsewhere. It had a western look and
feel to it and we were both hoping for a bacon and eggs style
breakfast but it was not to be. Communication was a barrier here
because even though they had the menu in English it was not clear
what you got with each dish. I had the most interesting pizza I have
ever had. It was topped with about an inch of sweet corn, hard peas
and carrots and was particularly unappetising. Stef ordered a steak
and pepper rice to go with it. Stef has explained his experiences in
his diary so here is an extract.
I ordered “steak” and pepper rice. From the pictures I
assumed I would get a bowl of rice with peppers in/on it and a steak
on its own. I actually ended up with two complete meals. The pepper
rice was a large plate which besides the rice and chillies also
included a generous helping of fried beef. “Maybe they have cleverly
interpreted my request for steak as being for meat in general and
have therefore included it in my rice” I thought, but no. As more
and more dishes were delivered to the table the magnitude of my
faux-pas became clear.
There was a chilled glass of minty
green juice, a bowl of pumpkin soup, a fruit salad, the cappuccino I
had ordered and an enormous plate with a massive steak, vegetables,
fried onions etc, a whole plateful of stuff. I could not help
laughing out loud at my own mistake and the absurdity of the
situation as the little Chinese waitresses delivered one dish after
another rapidly running out of room on the table. Earlier I had been
asked, with a printed Chinese/English page, how I would like my
steak cooked and I chose medium rare. The piece of beef was in fact
served blue.
With our dictionary we cobbled
together the request “more cooked” but repeating this and showing
the version in Chinese characters and trying the alternative “cooked
more” were all met with bemused stares. Eventually I just gave the
plate back and said “xie xie” (thank you) and got on with my sole
remaining meal and sundry side dishes.
A few tables behind us there was
an English speaking middle aged man sharing a table with a Chinese
woman. Our waitresses enlisted the help of the Chinese woman who
came over and helpfully, in what at first appeared fluent English,
said to me “neck half ten”. I had no idea what she meant and she
repeated the odd expression a few more times. Then the man came
over, a fluent English speaker, but alas not a word of Chinese. I
explained my predicament to him, which he then in a modified version
of English conveyed to his companion, who relayed it to the team of
waitresses, Chinese whispers indeed. Aha, now it was suddenly
crystal clear. The team disappeared taking my steak with them, The
man explained that you have to word the request as “cook long time”
as the Western concept of a state of the meat’s cooked-ness would
simply not be understood. Cooked is cooked and that is that. From
his seat he explained that he was from Montreal and here to marry
his wife to be, the Chinese lady. What sort of an arrangement this
was we have not yet figured out. He had himself had the same problem
and was “hankering after a good old cheese burger so bad you
wouldn’t believe”. The irony was that back home he is an executive
chef.
My steak came back cooked through
but fortunately not dried out and very tasty but it certainly was
not any beef I have ever come across, maybe veal. Other
possibilities were too exotic/worrying to be considered.
The restaurant also showed another feature that we have now
seen a few times and is one of questionable taste. Most of the
tables are designed as if you were in a bar. They are quite low and
have two two-seater settees, one on either side. It is OK for eating
but is really designed so that people can comfortable while away the
evening drinking outrageously priced alcohol. Here though they have
taken the idea of a cosy romantic drink to a new level. They have
swinging chairs, hanging by chains from the ceiling and decorated
with flowers so that you can have a quiet little romantic drink with
the one you love. Highly questionable taste on the part of the
person who commissioned and made them!
We spent the rest of the day not doing an awful lot, just lazing
about in our room and for me at any rate trying to shake off the
under the weather feeling that was still plaguing me. With a long
train ride ahead of us tomorrow we popped out to make sure we had
enough drinks to see us through, had a light dinner and then went to
bed.
