Surprise!!! revealed…

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张强, the man in the picture with me is your classmate, 王成仓! I met him waiting for a bus leaving the Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat Sen) Memorial. We talked for a while and he told me he knew one person who was living in Florida. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was you!!!

Thanks to everyone for reading my blog (or at least looking at the pictures) I will finish it when I have time at home and will post a lot of pictures on my picture site: http://www.thoughtbyscott.smugmug.com

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First of all, Qian…I decided I better put up the food from Nanjing right away, before I continue my ongoing narrative, since I know you would be anxious to find out what I ate. I didn’t find the restaurants you picked out, but I went with two nice older French people to a very good restaurant and had a few good dishes. I didn’t want you to stop reading, as I will put the pictures of the food below this next item…

To one of the readers of this blog…

…SURPRISE!!!

Please post a comment if you are the one…

Guess who...

I was trying to figure out how to make this a really funny surprise. For instance, I was thinking of having this gentleman act like one of the people in the background of a picture (but make it a little more than background, so someone who hasn’t seen him for a while might just recognize him). But, this is one of those “small world” deals that is pretty amazing. I met him at the Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat Sen) Memorial as we were both getting on a bus to go back to town. He spoke very good English, so I took a break from my poor Chinese and we discussed several typical things, such as where we live, etc. He said he has one friend who lives in Florida. As is turns out, this friend happens to be a good friend of mine, who is reading this blog! This man is not from Nanjing, but another city in China, who was here on a business trip. What are the odds of striking up a conversation at a bus stop in Nanjing and having you both know the same person very well, when you live in Tallahassee, Florida (a town the vast majority of Chinese have never even heard of)??? I mean, we had to have the conversation and have it get that deep to even find out this is the case!

(By the way – if I haven’t received a comment by the time I come home, I’ll reveal the identity of our mystery guest.)

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Food in Nanjing…

So, I will change this part of the post to a new one when I get to Nanjing in the narrative, but I have at least one interested reader who want to see what I had…

Part of first night's dinner in Nanjing

Last dinner in Nanjing

I know, one thing is missing…the duck’s blood soup or bean noodles. It’s my fault, in that I didn’t learn how to say “blood” in Chinese, and my pantomime of blood coming out of the duck got us spicy duck’s neck (on the right), which was very good, but isn’t what I was asking for. Well, you know what they say…I guess that will give me something to come back for!

For those who don’t know, the bottom picture’s dishes are (in a clockwise spiral from the left):

1) Lion’s Head Soup – No, they didn’t kill a big cat for my dinner…it is a big pork meatball in a broth with a leafy vegetable.

2) A vegetable dish recommended by one of the restaurant’s employees as Nanjing food, the sauce tastes like it has soy sauce, vinegar and sugar. It was very delicious.

3) Spicy duck’s neck ??? – this is an educated guess, since I thought I was ordering duck’s blood soup

4) Salty duck – A Nanjing specialty served cold, it is very good!

5) Chou dofu – Also known as smelly tofu, or stinky tofu. This was probably the stinkiest I have had. It tastes OK, but it wasn’t my favorite.

Also, I didn’t get the restaurant’s name, but it’s a pretty big one 300m south of Fuzimiao, with the first Hanzi being 王 (Wang). It was very good. If you know the name, please put it in a comment, so I’ll know it, too. I can recognize if it’s the right one. Thanks.

Next, I’ll go back to the narrative…干杯 (ganbei, or, bottoms up!)…