The China Megathread III: It is not a happy everyday

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Ailumao: Nov 4, 2004

Oh you wanted hot pot recs. That's easy: Long Sen Yuan

This is easily my favorite hot pot place in the whole world and multiple goons in this thread may also attest to it as they selfishly went to it without me once and couldn't stop talking about how good it is. My dark secret is I actually am not a massive fan of hot pot but this place is v v v good.

You can make reservations, and should for dinner, but I've been able to just show up for lunch pretty normally.

# ? Apr 3, 2019 05:55

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# ? May 28, 2024 23:41

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Magna Kaser posted:

Oh you wanted hot pot recs. That's easy: Long Sen Yuan

This is easily my favorite hot pot place in the whole world and multiple goons in this thread may also attest to it as they selfishly went to it without me once and couldn't stop talking about how good it is. My dark secret is I actually am not a massive fan of hot pot but this place is v v v good.

You can make reservations, and should for dinner, but I've been able to just show up for lunch pretty normally.

This is the place where I tricked multiple goons into eating cows brain even though they didn�t want to

# ? Apr 3, 2019 06:22

caberham: Mar 18, 2009; by Smythe; Grimey Drawer

I wasn�t tricked and thought it was a good idea

# ? Apr 3, 2019 06:23

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

I wasn't tricked but I wish I was

# ? Apr 3, 2019 06:39

The Great Autismo!: Mar 3, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

fart simpson posted:

This is the place where I tricked multiple goons into eating cows brain even though they didn�t want to

I wasn't thrilled but simplefish was pissed, lol.

this was the meal that SF summed up our table after we started eating the spicy side of the hot pot with "he's glistening. you're crying. he's choking. chengdu goon meet, 2017" lol

# ? Apr 3, 2019 08:39

The Great Autismo!: Mar 3, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

under this, in my notepad, I have a long list of youtube channels and podcasts that I have and only gotten to some of them so far. SF, you'll be glad to know I've ripped a ton of Derren Brown over the past six months. right smack dab in the middle of this list is "TGA is freaking gay (real life not a podcast)"

thanks a lot, jackass. almost as nice as the time you woke me up in hawaii with a text and I thought "oh nice Alex is texting me" and it said "I just found a picture of your mom" or something and it was a picture of a trash can. lol

# ? Apr 3, 2019 08:41

simplefish: Mar 28, 2011; So long, and thanks for all the ~~fish~~ gallbladdΣrs!

eat everything in chengdu. twice.

except brain cubes.

# ? Apr 3, 2019 10:50

simplefish: Mar 28, 2011; So long, and thanks for all the ~~fish~~ gallbladdΣrs!

The Great Autismo! posted:

under this, in my notepad, I have a long list of youtube channels and podcasts that I have and only gotten to some of them so far. SF, you'll be glad to know I've ripped a ton of Derren Brown over the past six months. right smack dab in the middle of this list is "TGA is freaking gay (real life not a podcast)"

thanks a lot, jackass. almost as nice as the time you woke me up in hawaii with a text and I thought "oh nice Alex is texting me" and it said "I just found a picture of your mom" or something and it was a picture of a trash can. lol

lol i remember this, it was good times

# ? Apr 3, 2019 10:51

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

The Great Autismo! posted:

under this, in my notepad, I have a long list of youtube channels and podcasts that I have and only gotten to some of them so far. SF, you'll be glad to know I've ripped a ton of Derren Brown over the past six months. right smack dab in the middle of this list is "TGA is freaking gay (real life not a podcast)"

thanks a lot, jackass. almost as nice as the time you woke me up in hawaii with a text and I thought "oh nice Alex is texting me" and it said "I just found a picture of your mom" or something and it was a picture of a trash can. lol

lol

# ? Apr 3, 2019 12:36

Cheesemaster200: Feb 11, 2004; Guard of the Citadel

Magna Kaser posted:

I think Chengdu is better to visit than Chongqing for sure.

4 days is fine. Depends what you wanna do.

If you wanna see both the Buddha at Leshan and Emeishan, you could:

1. Morning, go to Leshan. It's a v. quick train from Chengdu south station. Then you can get a cab or bus to the Buddha.

2. See the buddha in the morning. I strongly suggest the boat compared to climbing the Buddha itself. It's easier, quicker, and you get a way better view of the thing.

3. Once you do that, take a train to Emei. Again, it's quick and there's like a bajillion trains a day.

4. You can get to Emei around noon if you started early enough (chengdu->leshan->buddha->Emei is like 3ish hours tops), and then you can opt to head up immediately. I'm assuming you don't mean the hike the whole thing, which is like a 8-9 hour hard trek. You can bus your way up, see the temples, take a cable car, etc... it takes a few hours to do everything.

5. Stay in Emei overnight, or head back to Chengdu in the evening.

I did this with my almost 70 year old (but very active) father and he was fine with it. Alternatively, you could get to Emei, chill out, stay overnight, and go up in the morning then head back to Chengdu the next afternoon.

Emei and Leshan are actually famous for cured pork and sausage (la rou 腊肉 and xiang chang 香肠） so if you can get those I'd grab it. Sichuan sausage is v different than Cantonese and other Chinese style sausage and goes bad really fast so you see it exported and outside Sichuan less. It's spicy + good imo.

For Chengdu itself, unless you really love crowds I'd stay away from the wide and narrow alley since it's just throngs of people and overpriced shops.

I personally like the Wuhou temple, which is good for 3 kingdoms nerds. It's a big open temple/museum with lots to explore and it's where Liu Bei's mausoleum is. Skip the Jinli pedestrian area next door though, it's just another wide and narrow alley tourist trap.

It's also right in the Tibetan quarter. I would suggest A Re Tibetan restaurant as it's the easiest and most tourist accommodating while still being good and tasty. Tibetan food is pretty unique as it's entirely yak-based.

Jinsha is another decent Chinese museum with a lot of cool stuff to look at. The location is kinda lovely in the north with nothing else around though.

Beyond that I think Chengdu is a very good and walkable city. The Yulin and Tongzilin areas in the southeast have a lot of restaurants, cafes, bars and street food you can lazily go around eating and hanging at. The Jiuyanqiao area is also OK, and where all the good Xinjiang restaurants live.

For where to stay, if you want hostels people really liked the Flipflop hostel, Mrs. Panda Hostel and Mix Hostel. These are all relatively central, near the subway, and very clean. I lived in the Mix hostel for 2 weeks when I first moved to Chengdu before I got settled, and had friends stay at the others.

Not sure your budget but nicer hotels are not super expensive in Chengdu. My dad stayed at the Holiday Inn (lol, but it's a nice hotel in China) at Dongmen Daqiao which is very central for like 80usd a night when he visited a few years ago.

Basically if you stay anywhere between the city center and the and second ring road you'll be able to get around easily. Even the airport is very well connected now, it's maybe 30min on the subway to the city center.

If you want food recs I have about 50000000 cuz Chengdu is a very good food city.

Thanks for the tips, this definitely helps. I was originally thinking to do Emei, but from what I understand it is constantly thronged with local tour groups unless you do the full multi-day hike. We are staying at the fancy version of the Mix Hostel down the street with a private room. Ultimately we decided to do three nights in Chengdu (2-full days, 2-half days) and a night in Chongqing. We will then take the train to Lhasa out of Chongqing; going overland to Kathmandu.

Definitely want to do a hot pot, so I will put Long Sen Yuan on our itinerary. Also might do some sort of cooking class or culinary tour.

# ? Apr 3, 2019 15:17

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Pro tip that hot pot place has a type of cow brain that�s pressed into cubes that don�t look like brains

# ? Apr 3, 2019 16:02

vanity slug: Jul 20, 2010

fart simpson posted:

Pro tip that hot pot place has a type of cow brain that�s pressed into cubes that don�t look like brains

nice i love brain cubes in my beer

# ? Apr 3, 2019 18:00

simplefish: Mar 28, 2011; So long, and thanks for all the ~~fish~~ gallbladdΣrs!

Jeoh posted:

nice i love brain cubes in my beer

how do you feel about butter in your tea?

# ? Apr 3, 2019 18:25

vanity slug: Jul 20, 2010

simplefish posted:

how do you feel about butter in your tea?

butter? i hardly knew her!

# ? Apr 3, 2019 19:37

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Cheesemaster200 posted:

We will then take the train to Lhasa out of Chongqing; going overland to Kathmandu.

Make sure to verify just before you go whether you're actually going to be allowed to do this or not. Tibet gets closed to foreigners/additional hoops added regularly and with no warning.

If you get screwed over for some reason, the entire western half of Chengdu is historical Tibet, just not the actual province. So you can still see Tibetan stuff, last I heard only one of the sub-regions of western Sichuan is closed to foreigners. The area directly west of Chengdu is open.

# ? Apr 3, 2019 22:08

Cheesemaster200: Feb 11, 2004; Guard of the Citadel

Grand Fromage posted:

Make sure to verify just before you go whether you're actually going to be allowed to do this or not. Tibet gets closed to foreigners/additional hoops added regularly and with no warning.

If you get screwed over for some reason, the entire western half of Chengdu is historical Tibet, just not the actual province. So you can still see Tibetan stuff, last I heard only one of the sub-regions of western Sichuan is closed to foreigners. The area directly west of Chengdu is open.

We are going with a tour group who is handling all our permits, etc. From my research the closures tend to focus around February and March unless there are other factors (earthquakes, etc.)

# ? Apr 4, 2019 04:40

Ailumao: Nov 4, 2004

simplefish posted:

how do you feel about butter in your tea?

the yak butter tea is one of the most divisive things i've ever come across. Literally everyone I know either absolutely loves it or can't stand it.

# ? Apr 4, 2019 09:07

tino: Jun 4, 2018; by Smythe

Cheese bubble tea is a new fad you can buy from any mall. And every Chinese mall have at least 5 different gimmick tea stands open next to each other.

# ? Apr 4, 2019 09:43

simplefish: Mar 28, 2011; So long, and thanks for all the ~~fish~~ gallbladdΣrs!

Magna Kaser posted:

the yak butter tea is one of the most divisive things i've ever come across. Literally everyone I know either absolutely loves it or can't stand it.

I think it's not bad. I think I could acquire the taste, but I prefer milk for now. It was good to try it though

# ? Apr 4, 2019 10:25

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

tino posted:

Cheese bubble tea is a new fad you can buy from any mall. And every Chinese mall have at least 5 different gimmick tea stands open next to each other.

new?

# ? Apr 4, 2019 11:23

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Magna Kaser posted:

the yak butter tea is one of the most divisive things i've ever come across. Literally everyone I know either absolutely loves it or can't stand it.

I love it.

Cheesemaster200 posted:

We are going with a tour group who is handling all our permits, etc. From my research the closures tend to focus around February and March unless there are other factors (earthquakes, etc.)

Yeah you have to go with a "tour group", even if it's a fake one. Just be sure to check yourself, this is China and scams are common.

# ? Apr 4, 2019 11:29

tino: Jun 4, 2018; by Smythe

fart simpson posted:

new?

At least it was not a thing 3 years ago.

# ? Apr 4, 2019 12:22

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

tino posted:

At least it was not a thing 3 years ago.

are you talking about cheese tea? bubble tea has been a thing for a long rear end time

# ? Apr 4, 2019 13:18

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

update: i can�t read, you clearly said cheese in the literal first word of your post.

# ? Apr 4, 2019 13:19

GoutPatrol: Oct 17, 2009; *Stupid Babby*

Another thing stolen from the good china

I do remember when Haier first mentioned cheese tea and he was soundly mocked for enjoying it.

# ? Apr 4, 2019 13:26

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

GoutPatrol posted:

Another thing stolen from the good china

I do remember when Haier first mentioned cheese tea and he was soundly mocked for enjoying it.

it�s not bad op

# ? Apr 4, 2019 13:29

tino: Jun 4, 2018; by Smythe

fart simpson posted:

are you talking about cheese tea? bubble tea has been a thing for a long rear end time

Cheese on top of green tea/bubble tea.

When I was in China last during last winter I drank at least one bubble tea every day. There was no way to order sugar free option for 95% of the tea stands so I just said gently caress it and drank lot of them. Weirdly I didn't gain any weight when I got back.

Also I didn't notice this before when I was younger. I really like the more overhead and some how softer sun in Southern China than the husher, higher contract sunlight in New York. I don't know why the direct sunlight is husher to the eyes in New York but it is.

tino fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Apr 4, 2019

# ? Apr 4, 2019 13:41

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Yeah cheese tea is the new hotness. I thought you can usually request at least 少糖 tho

# ? Apr 4, 2019 13:54

vanity slug: Jul 20, 2010

*barges into thread on clogs and covered in herring*

thats not loving cheese

# ? Apr 4, 2019 14:04

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Jeoh posted:

*barges into thread on clogs and covered in herring*

thats not loving cheese

Aren�t you lactose intolerant

# ? Apr 4, 2019 14:13

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

What the HECK do you know about cheese. I�ve been drinking cheese since heforenyou we�re born

# ? Apr 4, 2019 14:14

vanity slug: Jul 20, 2010

fart simpson posted:

What the HECK do you know about cheese. I�ve been drinking cheese since heforenyou we�re born

the gently caress do you know about cheese, mainelander

# ? Apr 4, 2019 14:35

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

Wouldn't yak butter tea have like 4900 calories per teaspoon

# ? Apr 4, 2019 18:38

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Bloodnose posted:

Wouldn't yak butter tea have like 4900 calories per teaspoon

It's not exactly a healthy everyday drink.

Unless your entire life is climbing Himalayan mountains, anyway.

# ? Apr 4, 2019 23:10

simplefish: Mar 28, 2011; So long, and thanks for all the ~~fish~~ gallbladdΣrs!

tino posted:

Also I didn't notice this before when I was younger. I really like the more overhead and some how softer sun in Southern China than the husher, higher contract sunlight in New York. I don't know why the direct sunlight is husher to the eyes in New York but it is.

The answer is literally pollution

# ? Apr 4, 2019 23:34

French Canadian: Feb 23, 2004; Fluffy cat sensory experience

I'm going back to China in a few weeks, to Dongguan. What cool new things are there? Last time I was at hai di lao (gently caress if I know how to spell it) where they whip noodles around and feed you lots of hot pot. It was at the big mall by Mission Hills golf course.

Does anyone even care about Dongguan?

# ? Apr 5, 2019 00:08

The Great Autismo!: Mar 3, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

Dongguan is the prostitution capital of China, so, uh, enjoy your trip

# ? Apr 5, 2019 01:01

French Canadian: Feb 23, 2004; Fluffy cat sensory experience

Is that because it's north of Shenzhen where all the foreign business people visit?

# ? Apr 5, 2019 01:20

Tom Smykowski: Jan 27, 2005; What the hell is wrong with you people?

Nah its because you're going there

# ? Apr 5, 2019 01:24

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# ? May 28, 2024 23:41

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I mean dong is right in the name.

# ? Apr 5, 2019 01:25

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