Hot Pot in Kunming

After getting back to Kunming from the Stone Forest, there wasn’t much left for us to do. One person went to a temple and another to a provincial museum, but neither of these activities appealed to me. In fact all that appealed to me was a little nap and some shopping for some provisions for the next few days – instant coffee and toilet paper. (Note: Once again, I have no photos that are germane to the post, so I'm just going to post some previously unpublished photos of China. Enjoy.)

At dinner, we met once again for dinner. This time, we had a Chinese specialty – the hot pot. Evidently, the hot pot is trending all over the country and this was our first chance to partake. The hot pot was similar – in a sense – to the meal we had the day before, but with significant differences. The basis of the hot pot is to cook your meal while you eat it. It starts with a soup boiling on the table, which has an oven top wired to it. We had two soups – one spicy and one mild. While the soups boiled, we selected about a dozen meats and another dozen vegetables to cook in our hot pot. Most of the stuff was pretty mainstream. Our meats included beef, mutton, fish balls, squid and pork. Another thing that it included was duck tongue. Among the vegetables was the standard Chinese lotus root. We also put together our own little sauces for the meal. I used a tad too much chili oil and it meant that everything I ate would be spicy regardless of the soup base from which I pulled my food, but that was fine.

The meal was very good and a lot of fun. Among my favorites were the fish balls and meatballs which went very well with the sauce that I made. The vegetables also were outstanding and cooked quickly in the boiling soup bases. I tried the duck tongue – I figured that since I love duck and I love tongue, duck tongue should be particularly awesome. Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly awesome. It was okay, but not particularly awesome. On top of that, there were a lot of bones and cartilage, so it was really more trouble that it was worth. That aside, however, it was a very good, if spicy, meal.

When we finished, it was still kind of early. The girl who had tried to get into China without a visa finally arrived with the group during dinner. After dinner, she and I went to a bar for some more Chinese beer. On the way, she stopped off to visit an ATM where she became the second person on this trip to leave a bank card in an ATM. Unfortunately, she didn’t realize this until about 24-hours and 400 kilometers later. She’s not having a good week.

In the morning, I tried the breakfast at the hotel in which we were staying. It was good, not great. I had some cold fried eggs (and they’re really not all that bad cold) as well as some fried dough sticks and some potatoes and onions. That’s about all the time we had to spend in Kunming because shortly before eight we were in taxis once again on our way to the bus station to catch a bus to Jianshui. That was earlier this morning and I’m damn close to catching up at this point. We’ll get to Jianshui in the net post.