Hot Pot

As I write this, it's Saturday morning, about 6:15. I won't be able to post this until we arrive later today in Yinchuan. We have spent the last two nights in a hotel in Yanchi, in the northeast part of the region.

We traveled by plane on Wednesday to Yinchuan from Shanghai, and stayed overnight at the Apollo Hotel. Our traveling party consisted of Helen, Frank P, Mel, Frank Yih, and Roger and Daisy (and me!!). Roger is the President of the Shanghai Rotary; a tall easygoing man with a warm smile and generous nature. He is originally from Northern Ireland, and he has a great British accent twinged with Gaelic; to hear him speak Chinese is a treat! Daisy is his wife, originally from Hong Kong; I have not had much opportunity to get to know her.

We were met at the airport by officials from the Government and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Charity Federation. Also joining us was Wangbo, an extremely talented photographer. Wangbo has spent about 20 years telling the story in his photos of the horrific living conditions children face in the mountains of western China. I'll write a more serious blog later about that.
We went by bus to the hotel, and had a fantastic hot pot dinner. None of us had ever experienced a hot pot dinner before, and although Nick had described it to me, I hadn't grasped yet what it would be like.

Each place setting has their own pot of boiling liquid; they start you with a broth with some vegetables in it and as the evening goes on, they add water to make sure you have enough liquid. The flame under the pot appears to be paraffin, and the servers keep coming back to replenish your flame (and refill your beer!)

You fill your plate with anything and everything you may want. There was lamb, beef, shrimp (with the heads still on) duck esophagus (yes, I had some) sheep intestine...you get the idea. I am a very adventurous eater – it shows, too...On the side, the server offers a variety of sauces that you can have mixed together to satisfy your own tastes. I mixed sesame paste, wasabi, and a little of a lot of other things.

Now comes the fun part. You simply drop in, one or more at a time, the various food you have chosen and cook it to your liking. Some of it is easy to manage with the chopsticks, some very difficult. I tried cockles (very small clam-like critters) and got all but one back out of the pot! I just couldn't the last one!!

I'm now writing on the bus heading back from Yanchi to Yinchuan. There is a lot of detail to fill in between! Look for more postings!