Lean On Me

I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time - leaning a metal ladder against the power lines you are planning on repairing.

What could possibly go wrong?

Stereotypes

No one (with an education) likes to admit their stereotypes, but let's be honest  - we pretty much all have them. I was unaware of one of mine until I was confronted with it.

I shot this video on a street in Tokyo. In the very center of the shot is an advertisement for an arcade. For adults. In the middle of the day.

As I giggled to myself while filming, I realized that a cartoon ad for an arcade for adults pretty much confirmed a number of stereotypes I have of Japan.

I'm sorry, Japan.

The End of the Roll

It always makes me super curious, and this time I decided to take a picture.

Toilet paper looks like toilet paper pretty much all over the world (at least as far as I've seen), but for some reason, when you get to the end of a Chinese roll of toilet paper - which has up to this point looked completely normal - suddenly things get weird.

It looks like they hired a blind kid to cut the last 4 ply with a straight razor while riding a Tilt-a-Whirl.

How the roll can start so normal and end so strange, I'll never know.

Go Big or Go Home

I like to go big. Sometimes it pays off (asking Stacy to date me) and sometimes it doesn't (I'm thinking of a number of surgeries that have resulted from going too big). Either way, it's still how I roll.

And so, when it comes time to sunburn, I like to go a little bigger than the next guy.

During Whitewater Raft Guide School - Summer 2010

Go Big, (Get Hurt), Go Home.

When Stacy Makes BEC...

(Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Biscuits) like she did today...

I'm pretty much the happiest person on the block. (And yes, I realize that my last 3 posts have been about food)

Oh, did I mention that she makes her biscuits from scratch? So, you know, you've got something to aspire to.

August in Review

I threw together some of the videos I took from this past month to let you see what August looked like for us.  It includes footage from the biggest religious festival in our city, the picnic, traveling around the province, and baking class.

Enjoy :)

Jalapeño Chicken Burger. Sort Of.

Whenever you show up in a city/town in China, there is always an easy way to tell how developed the town and surrounded area is. I call it the "restaurant litmus test."

• Tier 1 Cities will have an abundance of Western restaurants, with so many options like Outback Steakhouse, Tony Roma's Ribs, non-chain Western establishments that are up to international standards, etc. that the though of going to Burger King or McDonald's wouldn't cross your mind.
• Tier 2 Cities have Dunkin Doughnuts, Baskin Robbins, Burger King, Papa John's Pizza and maybe 1 or 2 other chains, any of which you would be happy to partake in.
• Tier 3 Cities have McDonald's and Pizza Hut and KFC, but none of the above restaurants (though Tier 1 and 2 Cities have these and all the options soon to be listed below). McDonald's is your best option here, though Pizza Hut used to be the best option in this kind of city until they decided to take on a distinctly more "local" flavor in their menu (read: corn on pizza, strange seafood fare on pizza, etc.)
  
• Tier 4 Cities have a bunch of KFCs, maybe a Pizza Hut if you're lucky, but that's it.
• Tier 5 Towns (and let's be clear, this is where "town" begins) may have 1 KFC or none. However, they will have an abundance of the Taiwanese KFC knock-off called Dicos. Imagine a grosser version of KFC with lower standards. Well, at least try to imagine, if you can.

So recently, while our friends James and Laura were in town visiting us, we took a road trip across the beautiful countryside to a town about 4 hours away.

Now, the town we live in has a handful of Dicos, so it's flirting with a "Tier 5 Town" rating on the Aaron O'Hare Restaurant Litmus Test scale. The town we took the road trip to, on the other hand, only has 1 Dicos. It's that kind of small. 

Stacy describes it as a "cowboy ghost town with tumbleweed blowing down the streets." That's pretty accurate.

A pretty standard Dicos combo meal, with fries (because they think that's obligatory for fast food), some weird soup, a rice and stir fry dish (because even though it's fast food, we're still in Asia), and some chicken nuggets.

Anyway, in this small, small town, I dragged everyone to Dicos so that I could grab a greasy chicken snack. When we got their, I came face-to-face with Dicos' new offering - The Jalapeño Chicken Burger.

Only, it was the Chinese version of a Jalapeño Chicken Burger, so it went something like this: a stale bun, a fried chicken breast patty, lettuce, tons of mayonnaise (it's a Dicos thing, I'm not sure why they put so much),  and cucumbers covered in some sort of a spicy sauce.

It was then that I realized that no one in the Dicos organization knew what a jalapeño was. Cucumbers covered in hot sauce? Is that the best your R&D department could come up with?

My parting thought: cucumbers covered in hot sauce + a borderline racist ad of a Chinese guy wearing a Mexican poncho, sombrero, and a General Zapata mustache does not equal a jalapeño chicken sandwich.

But for now, I guess it'll have to do.

RC Cola and a Moon Pie

One snack I love more than most, especially in the summer, is an RC Cola and a Moon Pie. I have no idea why the two flavors go together so well, but they absolutely do.

Now, this may come as a surprise, but over here we can't get most of the snacks that I am so fond of back home in the US.

However, earlier this past week, our town just started importing a new drink (yes, we're aware of almost every foreign product that gets imported into town, usually within a week or two of it showing up) from Thailand, a drink called "Est."

I first tried Est when I was in Thailand in January because - and this is real - the marketing on Thai TV in the airport just as we were arriving grabbed my interest (that's pretty good marketing, if you ask me).

I grabbed a bottle and was immediately struck by how similar the flavor was to RC Cola. After asking around, I was told that the company who had bottled for Pepsi Cola in Thailand had not had their contract renewed, so they had created their own cola drink, mimicking Pepsi's colors and flavors.


Well, when I saw Est in our town this week, I grabbed 3 bottles with childlike delight, because we already have a snack in town called an "Orion Pie," which is remarkably similar (though not nearly as good) as a Moon Pie.

Putting the two together = as close to an RC Cola and Moon Pie as I can get. Pure (Asian) Bliss.

Class is in Session.

It's challenging to bake when you live at 12,000ft.

It's also challenging to bake when you grew up in a culture that largely does not eat bread.

But I've found, if you've ever traveled outside of this country or even just outside of this province, you'll love pizza and want to learn how to make it.

So that is why I am currently teaching some local businessmen how to bake.  They said they want to learn how to bake, but after our first meeting together, it sounds like they only want to learn to make pizza - which is just as easy here as it is at sea level.

Getting our game faces on

Teaching him how to roll out the dough

And how to hand toss

Look at that beautiful hand tossed crust.  My oven is only big enough to make personal pan pizzas, so we made a lot of those.

Another pizza going into the oven, this time accompanied by a calzone

One of the guys was so excited he invited his kids and wife to come try the pizza he made.

All done.  Leaving the clean up for someone else....

Thank God I'm A Country Boy

My wife will quickly point out that I'm not really a country boy. Be that as it may, I do love getting out, working with my hands, and learning rural ways - so when the chance to learn how to make canola oil came along, I jumped on it.

(Full disclosure: they use a machine to press the oil, so it's not like I was squeezing seeds all day or anything, but it was still fun)