China,  Round the world,  Warm blanket of sarcasm

Kilometr 22 856: on withdrawal and detox aka sweets in China

Sister! There will come a time when you start to hate China, the Chinese and yourself for the idea to come to this country. You’ll wake up furious, your man will piss you off without even knowing the how or the why, which will piss you off even more. The day will be doomed before it really begins and only three things will be able to save it: haribo gummy bears, a white kitkat bar and Portuguese sweet fortified wine. Non-Portuguese, non-sweet and non-fortified can also do the job.

There are two ways to handle the situation: you can go shopping by yourself or send your man to do it. The latter one is a better option, because then you will have someone to blame for failing. Usually shopping abroad is not as satisfactory as in your little shop just down the corner, where the shop keeper knows you by your first name and first choice of gummy bears, but it is still reasonably pleasing.

So… let’s live through the PMS in China.

Supermarket, candy lane. I’m scanning the shelves looking for chocolate. First shop – no sign thereof. Second one – still nothing. I’m starting to suspect, but refuse to believe it. Sadly, the sooner it gets to us, the less acute the disappointment in the nearest hours. This country has no chocolate. Rice cookies with sweet bean filling and milky deserts with peas and corn gaze at me from the shelves.

Rice cookies with pea, sweet potato, bean and green tea filling.
Rice cookies with pea, sweet potato, bean and green tea filling.
Peanut and bean flavoured milk. Very popular.
Peanut and bean flavoured milk. Very popular.
The favourite snack of the Middle Kingdom, here in the corn edition.
The favourite snack of the Middle Kingdom, here in the corn edition.

Bakery, French by the name. Hoping for a chocolate croissant (silly me!) I enter and I smell. I receive a warm welcome from a donut with peas filling and an éclair with something that wasn’t considered meat either by my vegetarian intuition or my taste buds, but I spit and I cursed Gordon Ramsey style. Meat floss (cotton candy made of heavily sugared pork) is by far the worst thing invented by the Chinese confectionary minds.

Brr! I warned you.
Brr! I warned you.

Local liquor store. I ask for white wine. The lady lets me choose between three barrels: rice moonshine 60%, rice moonshine 48% and rice moonshine with an addition of something sweeter and fruitier 25%. Let’s have a bit of the latter one then… The lady packed the wine into a plastic bag. No bottle included. Not exactly what I had in mind hoping for the fortified wine…

The high culture of wine drinking.
The high culture of wine drinking.

I went extreme and started looking for dried fruit. Who tries to shut the chocolate withdrawal up with dried fruit? A desperate person, that’s who. The peach and the plum were salted.

That’s that. I’ll just have to sleep through this PMS…

Looking for alternative sources of sugar: dragonfruit
Looking for alternative sources of sugar: dragonfruit
How Chengdu serves icecream :) and since Chengdu is the Chinese capital of the cute and the cuddly, let's visit the locals...
How Chengdu serves ice cream 🙂 and since Chengdu is the Chinese capital of the cute and the cuddly, let’s visit the locals…

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In the Giant Panda Breeding Reserve you can observe the life of the lazy bears.
In the Giant Panda Breeding Reserve you can observe the life of the lazy bears.

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Everybody was kung-fu fighting…
Everybody was kung-fu fighting…

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Another inhabitant is the red panda, a distant and far more lively cousin.
Another inhabitant is the red panda, a distant and far more lively cousin.

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