All posts by Ben Noon

TEFL teacher and proud president of ChinaTEFLer.com.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger leaping Gorge The first amazing wonder you need to know about is Tiger leaping Gorge. This large, romantically named gorge is where the Yangtze River is violently and narrowly channelled through a 3000m steep gorge acting as a border between two Yunnan mountain ranges; the ‘Haba’ snow mountain range to the north and the Yu Long snow mountain range to the south. The mountains are extremely steep and dominating with a predominantly grey gritty rock formation. The bare stone contrasts against the clear blue sky above and the foaming white thrashing river below. The gorge supposedly gets its name…

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Chinese BBQ Culture!

The local people love to spend a day or two per year having a BBQ. In Huaxi, the scenic district of my small city. Large groups of Chinese hire a venue and spend the day eating local foods and drinking beer. Bike riding, swimming in the lakes etc.

Stewed frog and shrimps. Sound juicy?

One of my Chinese friends came round and showed me how to make this rather peculiar dish. It is a white rice dish which then has 1 vegetable dish of tomatoes and sugar with 2 meat dishes of Frog and Shrimp. The frogs intestines are pulled out before being placed into a red hot wok with a little lard. After frying, green vegetable shoots are added along with peas. The shrimps are boiled  whole for around 5/ 10 minutes in a wok of boiling water. The rice is cooked in a small convenient rice cooker.  When this is prepared, a small bowl of La Jia (Chilli pepper) is added with onion shoots, soy and seafood sauce to make the dip. The dish tastes pretty good, however as expected, there is not a lot of meat on the frogs and so picking the meat from the small bones is tedious.