Tales from the Dragon

[a447]

We used to go strawberry picking in Japan.

You pay a set fee and they give you a basket and a can of condensed milk, and off you go. It might be an Asian thing.

That town looks really charming. And it's great to see photos of another side of China which don't just show endless forests of apartments and skyscrapers, along with Louis Vuitton and Gucci!

[arsenal]

The rural farm with little machinery that I saw takes payment from a scanned phone app. He was surprised when I paid with cash.

Coming soon. A beautiful monastry/fortress and some abysmal but funny communist style leisure facilities. Plus parklife.

[christianpfc]

And it's strawberry season here. Look how red they are and they taste better than any strawberry I've eaten in the UK.

Whereas all strawberries I had in Thailand were unripe, and I quickly gave up eating strawberries in Thailand. Those sold in Cambodia look unripe so I didn't even try. The problem is that ripe strawberries are soft and deteriorate quickly. That's why they pick them unripe, but then don't ripen once detached from the plant (not climacteric) and don't taste unripe.

[arsenal]

Out and about. I came across this family of early bird black swans taking advantage of the mild winter. 7 fluffy little cygnets. All a little discombobulated because the lake is being drained, dredged and cleaned. Ironically the egrets think it's Christmas as they wade through the mud picking off the fish.

On the way home time to stop and watch a ding ding between a couple and one of the bicycle street pedalo operators. Most unusually he had a bloody nose and they didn't like being photographed but nothing gets in the way of a good story.

Day or night, always something interesting to see in this city.

[arsenal]

One of our beautiful temple/fortresses. Not original but certainly built in the style. Note the steep angled rampart. Just walking up it was knackering but trying to run with arrows being fired at you would be impossible and the stones are so polished that even a humid day makes them slippery. Sadly closed at the moment but I can tell you that inside it is labyrinthine with multiple staircases going off in different directions, a common trait in Chinese defensive buildings.

[arsenal]

Park Life. Love the guys fishing in crash helmets. Strictly speaking the fish woman wasn't in a park but next to the river. Out of shot there was a policeman to my right who'd just arrived. I don't know if he was going to buy something for dinner, move her on or collect his dues.

[latintopxxx]

yuck...wouldnt eat that fish...rivers/lakes/fish farms in most of Chia are soooo polluted

[StevieWonders]

yuck...wouldnt eat that fish...rivers/lakes/fish farms in most of Chia are soooo polluted

Is this your official opinion as, if I recall correctly, a food quality auditor?

[arsenal]

"yuck...wouldnt eat that fish...rivers/lakes/fish farms in most of Chia are soooo polluted"

I'm sure this catch comes from the sparkling crystal clear waters of the Yangtze. Anyway every river fish I've seen seems to be made up of bones and little else. As for turtle, I've been to banquets where it's been served and....no one eats it, it just sits there as a sort of uninvited culinary centre piece. I did try and taste some but again, there didn't appear to be anything to actually eat. Perhaps you're supposed to just sip the broth. The Empress Dowager Longyu does that in The Last Emperor. A truly stunning film and shot almost entirely within The Forbidden City.

In an act of gross cultural vandalism The Forbidden City is now called The Palace Museum.

[arsenal]

Out and about. The old women doing their street dancing 'exercise'. One old woman didn't want nt to pay the dues so she danced off to the side. The turtle was for sale at 100rmb. The guy in rhe restaurant ordered a burger and the mixed grill, both of which are huge, a very Chinese thing to do. The street cleaners on parade, I often see them at 4.00am as I travel home from a club. The guy going for a swim is hardier than me. And not shown, the money boy who promised he wasn't fat only for a chubby chipmunk to show up. He lasted 2 seconds. "You're fat, goodbye."