This post is a little more photo oriented with captions:
WEDNESDAY
The same day my dad left town, my Mom and I went looking to try out a local McDonalds.
We ordered two "Grilled Chicken Sandwich" meals and I also had a fish filet sandwich. Note that these are actually I think smaller than I make them look in the photo. I believe their "large" drink (not the one I have) is actually the same size as our $1 small in the US...
The fish filet sandwich was pretty small. The grilled chicken sandwich is definitely something unique to McDonalds in Asia! They were both pretty good and the chicken sandwich definitely seemed more... Asian... in the style in which it was made.
What I did notice though was that McDonalds is much larger here than we're used to (and obviously with no drive through). They were pretty busy when we stopped by for lunch, and had basically a full upstairs seating area for customers. I don't know that I'd have it again in Asia, but it certainly wasn't too heavy on the wallet.
After Mcdonalds, we went to the local Carrefour market, where we spent quite some time in the seafood section. My mom really loves clams, and they were on sale (basically $0.50/pound) so we bought quite a lot!
They also have other interesting things and a variety of them as well. For example, this picture is of a tank full of small sea snails. Yes, snails. I should've gotten a video of it to show you, but they were definitely still crawing slowly around in the tank. I watched as one actually pulled himself almost two inches out of his shell as he was barely moving along. Snails are available in the US as well at asian supermarkets, but I guess these were more special to the area. It's also expensive if you live locally at a whopping $4/pound.
Being that my mom loves snails... we bought some and boiled them.
Pointy shell and extremely small. You eat it by removing the snail with a toothpick.
We also bought slightly larger ones as well...
... and here is one out of the shell. I know this might disgust some, but it's actually pretty good. =P
Bowl full of clams in a spicy soy sauce mixture - very good!
THURSDAY
We spent most of the next day doing some shopping with my dad's maid, who showed us around some smaller shopping spots in town where she felt things would be cheaper. Before we headed out to the "mall", we first hit up a local noodle shop:
The noodles are pretty good and the bowl is large - it came in a ceramic pot that was extremely hot too. This was in particular was a hot & sour soup base. By the way, this is sort of considered more to be like Chinese fast food here.
We also ordered these soft biscuits with some kind of meat paste inside - they were fairly sweet.
The noodles are made by bringing a hot ceramic bowl with the soup base, then a plate of veggies and meat is poured into it to cook a little, followed in the end by the noodles.
At the end of the day, my dad returned from his trip and we had a nice family meal at home.
One of the special dishes we had bought at a local shop is Ox feet - literally as you can tell. It's a bit chewy and there isn't much meat, but it was actually extremely good!
FRIDAY
Finally, we ended our week of tons of food as always. Lunch was at a nice place with these wraps and items to put inside.
Check it out! The dishes and stuff come wrapped, sterilized, and dated!
Here were some of the items that we had to put into the wraps that you can see in the last photo. I'm not sure how to describe them - they're sort of made of flour and thin. Though not as thin as rice paper that is used in Vietnamese spring rolls.
I must've ate 8 or 9 of these things...
Our final dinner was a huge hot pot dinner at the only place in town that valet parks. The hot pot is split into a spicy and non-spicy side, and the spicy side was SPICY. Even my mom noted it had a huge kick, though we were told this was actually their "mild". I guess I don't want to know what "hot" must be like! The meat was EXTREMELY good in that it was premarinated and tenderized so well that pieces of lamb and beef felt like they were melting in your mouth.
As you can see, we ate quite a fair number of plates worth of food! I'm not sure I'll ever have such good hot pot ever again, especially even in the US!
KARAOKE
We finally ended the evening, and basically our trip, with a night out at a local karaoke joint. Karaoke here is called KTV (Karaoke TV) and is fairly different than what I've enjoyed in the US. We had a large room with it's own bathroom, tons of snacks and beer, and an electronic touch-screen system for selecting music.
As you can see, the room also included a stage with a screen so you could literally perform for your friends & family. In fact, I was told that they have even much larger rooms that allows room for dancing and more!
Check out the tambourines they provide to help with your enjoyment!
FINALLY
So tonight we are packing up our final items and preparing to leave tomorrow morning. I'm planning to make a final post about observations and random items either in the morning or when I have my layover in Korea. Otherwise, this may very well be my last post here in Dalian!
Hope you've all enjoyed my adventures in blogging and I guess I'll see some of you soon back in San Diego. =)
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