Chinese Food

I anticipated the food in China to be horrible. I packed an abundance of crackers and powerbars so that if needed I could survive on just that. The food turned out to be not that bad. Most places had simple western breakfasts that included eggs and some type of toast. I'm not a big breakfast person anyway, so I would eat lightly. The Wuyi University breakfast was pretty good with eggs, these neat peanut butter fried sandwiches, breads (none of the bread in China was good) and fruits. Lunch and dinner were essentially a lot alike almost daily, there would be a few set plates with noodles with pork and other various dishes. Most of them left you guessing until the first bite though. As much as possible the group tried to get a hold of western food or just generally food that was somewhat close to what we consider normal. McDonalds tastes basically the same though they have some interesting sauces for nuggets. Everything was usually cheap and you could get a variety anywhere you went. Almost every meal was with a lazy susan, which you spin to get different foods. This works entirely on an "individual teamwork" based system. When everyone else is eating, turn it in hopes of not disrupting what someone was about to reach for. Because I am fairly patient I would wait a while and even when I was about to reach it would often turn and I'd have to abort the entire operation of grabbing my food. While it may seem convienent(sp) to have a lazy susan, it really offers a new challenge to eating. I tried my best as well to guide others on what food I was familiar with because I eat a lot of asian cuisine.
Here are some of my basic rules and warnings:
Stay away from deserts unless they are fruit.
Don't eat food off the street.
On a hot day, if you are sick and need cold water, make sure you specify cold. Apparently scolding hot it just how water is served normally.
People will pressure you to eat soup and other random things. Try not to break. haha
Fish is tasty but you will always have bones just like watermelons will always have seeds.
Most places don't have refridgerators so sorry no leftovers!
When in China and looking for a meal, think money is no object because everything is cheap.
Check out the American isle in the bigger shops for a laugh. $8 for a can of imported campells clam chowder!