A little food trivia

镇江三怪 (Zhen jiang san guai) - The three bizarre/peculiar foods of Zhenjiang

1. 镇江肴肉 (Zhen jiang yao rou) - A specific way of preparing and cooking a selected cut of pork. It tastes like it's been brined somehow.  

 2. 镇江锅盖面 (Zhen jiang guo gai mian) - Really fantastic noodle (面) soup. There's some legend about the origin of this noodle soup that says somehow a small pot cover (锅盖) fell into the larger vat/pot that was cooking noodle soup and then people discovered that the result of that was delicious. The above picture shows beef in the noodle soup, although many other types of meat are also cooked in 锅盖面.

3. 镇江香醋 (Zhen jiang xiang cu) - The vinegar (醋) made in Zhen jiang is known for being extra fresh/flavorful or keeping longer, or something like that. 肴肉 is commonly dipped in the 醋 and eaten. The vinegar in the above picture is in the small bowl slightly off center to the left.
In fact, this last picture shows all 3 weird foods of Zhen jiang!

Sightseeing in 徐州 (Xu zhou)

The scope of the tomb

More happenings from last week:

Front of a Han Dynasty Liu family 墓 (mu: tomb)
in 徐州 (Xu zhou)

A burial outfit made completely out of
jade pieces and threaded with gold wires 

A portion of the miniature terra cotta
figures that guard the tomb.

A life sized terra cotta warrior from the
most famous tomb in 西安 (Xi'an)

Outside the 龟山汉墓 (Gui shan Han mu)
Gui shan Han Dynasty tombs

Last week in 连云港 （Lian yun gang, literal meaning: Clouds and harbor are connected) I had a possibly once in a lifetime opportunity to pick cherries- 樱桃 (ying tao) straight from the cherry tree of my uncle's friend's friend's family. Those were some of the best 樱桃 I've ever eaten.

There's a saying in 连云港：海天一色（Hai tian yi se), that the sea and the sky are just one color. It really did seem like it on that day.