On the first day we had Sichuan food at a place called Kongque, and they really were using fresh ingredients. It is not even a particularly famous restaurant, but the menu had things that are hard to eat in Korea, so I was a little impressed.

Sichuan food

It has that tingly, numbing kick. Of course you could reproduce this flavour in Korea or Japan too, but in China it feels like you can walk into just about anywhere and food like this comes out.. You do need to travel once in a while.

Fish

In China, leaving food on the table is the polite thing to do. Having gone through it myself, I understand what that means. You do not have to force yourself to finish everything, so it actually struck me as more sensible than Korea or Japan.

Baijiu

The baijiu is cheap and tasty too.. to think Chinese people drink this as a matter of course.. I got a bit envious. The one thing is that people keep offering you cigarettes while you drink.. I cannot get used to that part of the culture..

Nantai Xianjiu

Nantai Xianjiu, is that how you read it.. Anyway, I drank a ton of this baijiu and I liked it a lot.

Dessert

This was seriously good, though I have no idea what it is called. There is red bean inside and it comes out piping hot.

A building..

It was night so I just snapped it, but the mood is really modern.

Places like this too..

I walked around a bit at night and went into a shopping mall that even had a Starbucks.

Rather than saying it is not much different from Korea, I would say it is further along than Korea.

A drink before bed

I had a beer with some tapas and went to sleep.

The view from the hotel the next day

A building I saw in the morning

Hotel breakfast

Hotel breakfast

It tastes just fine.

A rainbow

Feels like something good is about to happen

A building

It is a tropical climate, so the weather keeps flipping. Clear one minute, then suddenly raining.

There is KFC too..

The street

7-Eleven

There is Yoshinoya too, everything you could want is here.

A bottled water ad

Kapok Hotel

Pretty luxurious, and the price was reasonable too, I liked it. Chinese visas are a pain to get, but prices are low, so it is well worth a trip.

The view at dawn

Shenzhen.. I used to think of it as the middle of nowhere, but it has left Korea far behind by now. I came home having learned a lot.

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