Qi Bao

Last Sunday we checked out an area called Qi Bao. It was recommended to us by one of my co-workers, Lily, who lives near it. She doesn't speak much English but at the teachers' dinner the week before she told Danny about it and we decided to check it out. It was one of those old fashioned looking Chinese streets, a bit like the bazaar by Yu Yuan Garden but far less tourists.














It was incredibly crowded. Almost everyone there looked like a local. I only saw a handful of western people the whole time we were walking around.














Lily told Danny that they had a lot of places that would be good for me to find vegetarian foods. There were a ton of snack foods for sale. We found homemade potato chips that were really yummy. We later found out you could order them online and they get there the next day. Shipping was free if you spend more than $5. We also tried sweet rice and beans inside a bamboo stick, cotton candy and some fruit I had never seen before that was sort of similar to a mango.


























We took a boat ride in the very dirty water to enjoy the scenery.























Qi Bao was a pretty cool area, but it was way too crowded and I felt sick so we didn't stay too long. We got hotpot in a restaurant nearby afterwards. Hotpot is becoming the one Chinese food I really like. Most of the time I eat western foods or at least Chinese-ized western foods. It really is a big enough city that I'm starting to feel like we can find most things. At first I wasn't sure and I was intimidated by the language barrier and how unappealing the outside of buildings look here. I'm enjoying exploring new neighborhoods now. So far my favorite area is Tian Zi Fang, I don't have any decent pictures of it though because we went at night and our camera sucks.