One Day in Frankfurt

We are back from Tyrol --- plenty of photos will follow soon. We made a stop in Frankfurt on our way back, to apply for a US visa, and to have some big city food, which we sometimes crave. We went to two Chinese restaurants, and one very special Frankfurt one (we will post about that one later).

Shui Zhu Yu (boiled fish served in chili oil) is one of those Chinese dishes that you don't expect to get a good version of, anywhere but in China. But lo and behold, in this small restaurant in Frankfurt, we found it! Real authentic flavors, and good, very fresh boiled fish --- an absolute delight!



We also had some fried tofu, and some cabbage, which were quite good too.



Highly recommended: Restaurant Jade on Moselstraße, close to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.

Boiled Lamb

A bus trip of a few hours brought us to Langmusi, an interesting little village with a mix of Hui, nomadic people, Tibetan people and also some Han Chinese. Many of the little restaurants were owned by Hui, who are muslim. The main specialty: boiled lamb, pictured above. We had it twice, it is really good.



Here is A in our favorite Hui restaurant.



And this is a view of the village from the mountain.

Tibetan People

Jiuzhaigou National Park

And then it was time to visit the park. We picked a very sunny day to visit this Unesco World Heritage site. We were most certainly not alone, as this is a main Chinese tourist attraction.



After you buy a ticket and walk through the gate, you find a parking lot with buses and minibuses waiting for you. The bus will take you to one of the two endpoints of the park, about 30 kilometers from the entrance.



You can already see (and take pictures and/or movies of) the beautiful scenery, slightly ruined by having this busy road next to it: mountains, waterfalls, and splendidly colored lakes.

Next, you can choose to walk parts of the way back, and take buses for the other stretches. Everyone is walking the same parts basically, so by choosing carefully which parts to walk, one can sometimes even enjoy the quiet of a park.

The colors of the lakes, and the clarity of the water, seem really out of this world.

Sadly, the view is sometimes blocked by some idiot.

Very special!

Zhuo Ma Home-Stay

This is the living room of the house where we did our home-stay. It was pretty cool to see such a beautifully decorated Tibetan home.

Jiuzhaigou

After having seen all the highlights of Chengdu, we took a plane to Jiuzhaigou, to visit the park there, and then travel north by bus.

This was a part of China we had not seen yet: Tibetan people, high mountains, yaks and lots of Buddhist things.

These pictures are from our afternoon stroll, close to where we stayed: a home-stay at a Tibetan house.
 

Also: Foodz

Red Pandas

One More Adult Giant Panda

Spot the Differences

(from the series, known by connoisseurs only, "Table Manners").

Young Giant Pandas

Adult Giant Panda

Chengdu Hotpot

Another thing that is famous from Chengdu is hotpot.



This is usually not our first choice of foodz, but we had to try it as it is famous here. Also, the air just outside this restaurant was very fragrant, which was obviously a very good sign.

We also suck at cooking our foodz in a hotpot, and somehow this is easily spotted by waiters. We were very happy that we received some help.



Meatz before...



... and after.



Some stomach.



Overall, I think this was probably the best wet hotpot experience we had. Still not completely convinced by the concept, however.