I spent most of October in Hangzhou, China for what could possibly be called work. My pictures are here. AJ’s are here, here, and here. Alan hasn’t uploaded his pictures yet, which is too bad. He brought his camera to almost every meal we ate.

Highlights:

A house in Shanghai that was built a little close to a freeway.

A delicious meal of stir-fried peppers, cephalopod (maybe octopus?), and onions. The parts were similar in texture and size, but very different in taste. Since this restaurant did not have picture menus, we pointed to the cheapest beer on the menu and, as you can see, got Budweiser.

Speaking of beer, this bottle of Xihu Light Beer has english text in capital red letters: FREE FROM FORMALDEHYDE. It’s kind of scary to see that warning after you’ve spent a week drinking other beers that may or may not be free from formaldehyde. Apparently brewers used to put small amounts of formaldehyde in their beer to make it age faster. They stopped a few years ago, but some bottles still brag about not containing poison (besides the alcohol).

Another tasty dish. This was asparagus with crab sauce.

I cannot overstate how varied the food was. Every dinner had completely different dishes, and that was just one region’s variance.