Food in china - attempt number one to actually write something sort-of-guide-book-like

The food is amazing in China. Not only diverse and pretty much available at any corner - although I wouldn’t recommend having it literally at any corner. They probably have “too” much diversity in fact, particularly as it seems like they really do eat anything they can put their hands on (poor dogs...). Nevertheless, once you find a good place (where cutlery and dishes are very well-packed on the table - meaning that it really should be cleaned), it only really becomes a China experience if you are sharing. And ordering loads of different things. And trying - and mostly failing - to grab the strange “things” with your likely dodgy chopstick skills. Of course, if you get to see a place where cutlery isn’t packed, you’ll probably see the locals making sure it gets clean. How? Step one: pour tea into a cup. Step two: use the hot tea to try to clean it. Step three: convince yourself that you are actually cleaning the stuff (and that it really wasn’t obviously dirty before). Another bulk part of the entire experience is trying to find out which thing is which on the menu - and there you can either go with the nice pictures (and no english translation) - or just go ahead and trust your luck. You’ll probably get laughed at for some options (or for all of them), but, overall, the more the better - you can always not eat the dodger(ish) thing. Ok, not everything is great. Particularly the smell. If you get to experience, you’ll know exactly what I mean. And no, it’s just a “western” thing; it is true that you could argue that maybe it only smells really bad because we are not used to it - but maybe it is wonderful for chinese people. But it isn’t, really, they find it as disgusting as anyone else. They just get used to it.

The East Side

It’s been a while since I have managed to write something. As a previous post mentioned, the absence and lack of radio/virtual emission does not mean that life has been boring and with pretty much nothing to do or report. Not at all!

I am now on my way to China for a conference. It should be a great conference, with plenty of opportunities to interact and hear about the latest on the field. On the other hand, it is the first time that I head East. Stockholm, in Sweden, is pretty much my “eastern” record. So this “breakthrough” represents a huge improvement on my “eastern” trips: Beijing and Guilin, in China. Of course, it is much more about just going East; it’s about actually heading towards a culture which is actually different from what most of Europe.