Galaxy Rise

Ningbo was great. The city itself wasn’t somewhere I’d visit for its own sake, but it was really nice to meet my friend who goes to university there. Also, with her showing me around, I got to try things that you can’t really do when travelling alone- like eating at proper Chinese restaurants. (Aside from the fact that I can’t for the life of me read a menu, you can’t really go alone, since the point is to order all kinds of dishes and share them.) So I got to try Hot Pot the first night, Sichuan food the second, and local Ningbo seafood the third. Everything was good, some things in a “Wow, this is really nice!” kind of way, and others in a “Well, eating that was an experience” kind of way. Actually, the only thing I can think of that I really wasn’t keen on was the drink I had at the Hot Pot place, which was a thick, warm sweet-corn flavoured thing. But I think it would have been perfectly fine as a soup. We also went to Pizza Hut for lunch one day, which qualifies as a Chinese restaurant, because as far as I know China is the only place where Pizza Hut is a restaurant. I mean, you come in, get given a table, a menu, you order, and pay the bill afterwards. It’s a restaurant. I don’t think takeaway is even an option. Very twilight-zone.