For Amanda.

These rocks are part of a national park called Shilin (The Stone Forest). I went there a couple of weekends ago with two friends, Nathan and Shannon. It was amazing. Often I felt like I was on the set of a movie. I even tried to recreate the scene from The Lord of the Rings-Fellowship, where Gandolf is standing on the edge of the stone bridge and yells You shall not pass. I truly felt almost 30 while climbing in these rocks all day. But I look forward to sharing it with you when you come to see me.

Thousand Year Old Jell-O Jigglers!!

So this week in class I am learning about meat dishes. How to order them at the restaurant and how to buy it at the market. This led to eggs. I asked my teacher what were the eggs that were covered in mud at the market and she didn’t know….so my homework was to bring mud eggs to class. So I did. They are called song hua dan. Usually they are duck eggs prepared a certain way. Du lao shi (teacher Du) was unable to completely describe the process but she did know that the mud is specially made for the eggs and consists of salt at least. She said that the eggs are packed in the mud and then either put into a pot and put away for two months or are buried in the ground for two months. Then they are removed and sold at the market. One of my teammates said that they are was Westerners call the Thousand year old egg. Anyway, I have prepared some pictures so that you can see the process of opening one of these eggs and get to see the inside. I was brave and had one forth of one in class. It doesn’t taste bad. It tastes like a hardboiled egg. It was the jello like texture that really bothered me. Enjoy the slide show.

First Step!!

I bought four song hua dan so that I could display each step all at once. First you have to peal the egg, which mean you have to get all the mud and grain (?) off.

Second Step!!

Once all the shell is removed you get to see the speckled membrane.

Third Step.

After all the membrane comes off you can finally see the golden egg!!!

Last Step!!!

Cutting the egg to see the gooey middle. It reminded me of a Cadbury egg. Yum!!

All Four Stages.