I think that I might have mentioned the Mooncake craze here in good old China--the festival is coming up within a couple of weeks and these different displays of what I call the mooncake madness is the heart of tourism in the area. The actual festival is down in Hong Kong--the lantern festival.
I keep thinking it might be a good idea to send one of these home as a gift--then I tasted one. Not for the western palette--let's just say that.
The outside of the cake is fine, a thicker cake like batter, golden brown and very sweet, but the inside is a giant goop, crystalized complex sugar mimicking whatever flavor it is supposed to be--the worst tasted thus far was what my translator called, green tea cake. Not so good. The smaller mini cakes that have much more batter than filling are decent, but not worthy of the high price.








This could be considered the largest mooncake in the city--which is in a place which boasts that it is an American Cake House.
Which begs me to ask you, when you think of an American Cake House, what do you think of?
IHOP? Krispy Kreme?
Well, lets just say that this place doesn't serve pancakes or donuts, but cavity causing sweet breads with mystery flavors to suite any palette and the mookcakes, well, the queen bee seems to be housed here.
This moon cake fetches a whopping 3800 rmb, which is a mere $475 US. This is about what I am making per month here (as my base) and it is about what the majority of Chinese make in 6 months time.
The design is cool and all, but $475?


Welcome to Joindoon! I really need to take pictures of these places inside, but I dont want to freak these people out when I pull out the camera to show my friends back home all the wierd and wild stuff they eat here in the PRC. Let me just say that I saw a butcher gut a dove this afternoon and offer it to me. Now I am trying to be as polite as possible, but I just have no use for a Dove for dinner.

The woman in the green is one of my collegues where I will be teaching tommorow morning. She is a very sweet woman who demanded that her husband drive us around throughout the day. She took us to eat at this simply wonderful dumpling house, just down the way from the McDonalds and the food was delicious, but the food just kept coming and coming and coming--- between four people we must have eaten easily more than 60 dumplings. Best food I have had yet, except for this lovely soup I cooked last night. The other person standing next to her with the white shirt and not dressed like a group of mormons is Marc, the Phillipino gentleman I mentioned earlier in my blog.


Yet another example of the crazy mooncake craze that has plagued this nation like SARS.














Moments like this are what is essentially China. Crazy streets with everymode of transport attempting to share the pathway with one another. I love pictures like this because it shows how insane and totally choatic it is here. China is where old habits die hard and the country is builing and moving at record rates. This town of 375,000 was not around 10years ago. The University I am teaching at wasn't here 5 years ago, but it was 5 different colleges that they made into this one campus, etched ever so slightly into a mountain side.
As they say here whenever I express my amazement of things---"This is China".