East Asian Food.

One of the most common questions I get about my summer in Asia is, "How was the food?" Truthfully, I was a little worried about the local cuisine. I've had some not-so-great experiences with spicy Thai food here in the cities, but I figured I'd be ok. (I actually didn't have stomach issues with any of the authentic asian food. The Asian version of American food was a different story!).

Here's a pretty typical meal for 8 people - 4 or 5 meat and veggie dishes, rice, soup and tea. Most tables had a lazy susan spinner in the middle. Every single meal was eaten with chopsticks (except at Pizza Hut!)

I'm not someone who likes to share my food, and I actually rarely eat with other people, so this style of eating was a little strange at first. But I quickly grew to really enjoy it. Our schedule was so busy that mealtimes were one of the best chances to really get to know fellow project students and staff.

Even the chopsticks became familiar and fun to use - my poor skills made me eat slower, which is probably more healthy, anyway. Several times we ended up playing a game of 'grab the peanut,' where we'd spin the lazy susan and see how many peanuts we could grab with our chopsticks. A messy but ridiculously fun game. Here's a shot of Rebekah and Becca attempting to grab a fish ball with their chopsticks - easier said than done!

One great thing about East Asia is all the awesome street vendor food. In Brazil we were instructed to eat at your own risk (aka: do not eat it at all). We tried all kinds of street vendor food in East Asia, especially for breakfast and lunch. One of my favorites was the breakfast sandwiches: a pocket of fried dough, with some type of brown sauce, a meat that tasted like chicken, lettuce, and strings of potatoes. YUM. And only $4 kuai (about 60 cents US). Plus the man and woman selling them were always so chipper early in the morning :)