Farewell Bagels

Over the weekend I received news that Danny, my favorite restaurateur in Guangzhou, passed away. No trip to the Guangdong provincial capital was complete without a stop at Danny's Italian Restaurant (formerly Danny's Bagel).

During my first year in Shenzhen, my brother sent me an email. One of his clients had a friend who made bagels in Guangzhou. This was music to a New Jersey native's ears (even though I was reading it)--I had spent the previous two years in Colorado without any decent bagels. It was another year before I finally made the trip to Guangzhou to eat at Danny's.

On my second solo trip to Guangzhou, to obtain useful information to apply for Jia's tourist visa (of course, the consulate provided no useful information), I made a point of having a bagel for lunch before heading to the consulate. Fortunately, Danny's is housed in a furniture shopping mall nearby. At least, I thought it was nearby. Turns out a thirty minute walk through Guangzhou in late spring is a painful reminder of the oppressive heat and humidity of the region.

I arrived at the Home Garden Mall a bit early. Danny's wasn't opened yet, so I found a sofa--the staff gave me awkward looks as I read a book. When I finally got into the restaurant for my bagel, I was greeted by Danny himself. It was nice to meet another New Jersey native. And he gave me some advice for dealing with the consulate. Although our conversation was brief, his affable personality led me to return on every trip through Guangzhou. And each time I visited, I tried something different from his menu.

We celebrated Jia's tourist visa with dinner at Danny's. He talked about some of the things he missed about New Jersey--he loved Harrold's Deli, and I brought back one of their cheesy napkins with deli Yiddish just for him. On that trip I had a chicken Parm sandwich that made me homesick--it was just like those I used to get at home.

Even on our final trip to Guangzhou we stopped in for lunch. It was only a short time before we moved to the US, and we wanted to see a few friends. Even though the restaurant closed between lunch and dinner, Danny stood around talking with us for two hours.

Since moving back to the US, I kept in touch with Danny. Every now and then I'd get an email asking how everything was in New Jersey or updating me on the goings on of Guangzhou. He especially liked to gloat when the northeast got excessive amounts of snow and he was in a much warmer climate.

New Friends in the City

I decided too late that I could go to TBEX and the event was sold out. I was looking forward to meeting all the travel bloggers in New York. Of course, I found out that there was some disorganization and I could've crashed the party without anyone noticing.

Fortunately, I made plans Sunday night to meet at least one visiting travel blogger--Jen from Solo Travel Girl. I was especially interested in meeting Jen because she was one the first regular readers of this blog.

We met up in Chinatown and found a small dumpling and noodle shop on Mott St., Wonton Garden. It felt like a Mainland noodle shop with a nice selection of dumplings, wontons, and noodles (unfortunately, they didn't have Lanzhou la mian). I was surprised by the amount of food they served for $5--those were big dumplings for any restaurant. Afterwards, we headed down to the Whiskey Tavern on Baxter for a drink.

I was surprised that Jen brought me a gift: homemade mango chutney. After trying it on fish and rice, I can safely say that it tastes amazing. The jar Jen gave me will not last two weeks for my wife to try when she returns from China.

In Style

Last night we decided to go out in style...sort of.

We had another going-away party (we've now had four with more to come) with quite a few of our friends at the Xinjiang restaurant across the street. We went all out and order the whole roast lamb. It weighed in at 14 lbs. and came with four side dishes (laohu cai, cucumber and garlic, and some noodles). The lamb was tender with thin crispy skin. We had to tear it apart and dip the pieces in a variety of spices (cumin, chili powder, chili sauce, and combination of cumin, chili and other spices).

With the number of people we had, we also had to order a few more vegetable dishes and nang. Because we've been in there rather often for the last year, the boss even gave us some soup and a very large fruit platter (with yellow watermelon?). It all tasted great along with a bit of Tsingtao and a bottle of cognac.
When all was said and done, we were thoroughly stuffed and the bill only came to about US$100--far cheaper than if we had chosen to eat one of the more popular buffets.

Jia's brilliant idea after the long dinner was to head down the road to Good Friend Health City for foot massages. We checked it out a few days ago, and they said it was 38RMB for an hour. Somehow Jia managed to get us a group discount, so the foot massage only cost us 30RMB each. I got comfortable next to two of my friends who speak decent Chinese, and we had some fun talking.

The girls giving the massage were quite amusing. One kept commenting how much more work she had to do with D.'s enormous feet. She also said something about his hairy legs, which was more amusing considering mine are hairier. All three girls laughed at I. for drinking beer during the massage--he kept trying to offer them some, but they refused. For some reason, the girl giving me the massage was very polite and made no odd comments about me--it was much appreciated.

The only one who didn't quite enjoy the massage was J. He managed to get the girl who gave an unwanted rough massage in a rather tender area when moving up the leg.

Things I'll Miss About Shenzhen (1)

With two weeks remaining on time in Shenzhen, Jia have places to go and people to see. Last night we took a trip out to Bao'an district to Face Alive to say goodbye to Mr. Tian, the owner. He insisted we make the trip outside the Special Economic Zone one last time. We haven't been there much since moving out of the district. It was an easy decision to make as he's been very generous over the last few years--we've rarely paid for drinks the past few times there.

We invited some friends who've never been there before as well as some older friends whom we haven't seen much lately. Mr. Tian invited us to sit out back where it was much quieter than inside the bar (the music is so loud you have to scream just to have a conversation that might be audible). He greeted us a bottle of Macallan 1985 private reserve--a nice single malt scotch that they don't serve at the bar. Mr. Tian had gone out to buy this just for us. It was a very nice send off.

Fortunately, Mr. Tian travels to the US every now and then to visit relatives. We told him he must let us know next time he's there so we can try to meet him.

Return to Photo Friday

I'm trying to remember to keep it simple for photo Fridays. Unfortunately, I'm having a difficult time remembering what photos I've used on this blog in the past few years.

This is the Bell Tower in Xi'an in August 2006. It was one of the friendliest cities I've visited in China. Just around the corner is the Muslim Quarter, where I met a nice shopkeeper who tried to converse with me in Chinese (although my ability was quite lacking at the time). I've also heard similar stories from other foreigners in China about how friendly the people of Xi'an can be.

Non-Earthquake Stuff

Everyone blogging in China is writing about the earthquakes in Sichuan. So everyone knows, we're fine here in Shenzhen--didn't feel a thing, which is surprising considering I'm pretty sure we're closer to the epicenter than Beijing.

While the others keep you up to date on the relief situation, I have other things to think about here. Later today, I have a going away party for four friends. One is getting transferred back to the states against his will, one is leaving for greener pastures (not sure where), and two are leaving because they can't get working visas because they are not native English speakers, even though they speak better than most English teachers I've met.

As they all go back home (or close to it), I'm staying here thinking about home a bit. I received quite a few emails asking if I was OK after the earthquake (mostly because people don't know where everything is in China). It reminds me that I have caring friends and family to return to when the time comes for me to leave China.

Off the Vine

Saturday was a free wine tasting at Carrefour by our apartment. It's probably not a great idea to advertise free, alcohol, and cheese to foreigners. It was quite a bit of fun. I'd write a review of the wines, but I'm no connoisseur. Also, after the first twenty or so, they all start to taste alike.

The highlights of the evening included the entertainment. They had cheerleaders. I'm still wondering how that mixes in with fine wine. On top of that, the evening concluded with bagpipes. I know I always think of great wine when I think of Scotland. By the end of it all, it turned into a self-serve party. We met some nice people who kept going to the wine tables and grabbing the open bottles that were no longer guarded by staff.

Sunday I decided that free drinks are not good for me.

On another note, I ran into my co-worker at the event. I found out that her husband is having some serious problems with renewing his visa. Because China decided to tighten visa rules ahead of the Olympics, many foreigners are having a more difficult time. But this one is truly baffling. They have been in China for six years, have a business, and own an apartment. But that's not enough to renew a visa. Usually a spouse can be included in a residence permit (which my co-worker had), but the police said their marriage certificate isn't valid because they didn't get it approved by the Chinese embassy in their home country. Today, she also told me that the police have dropped by their home 10 times in the last couple months to check on their visas and other paperwork. We're really hoping that a miracle happens--his current visa expires tomorrow.

Just Visiting

Jia's friends from Xinjiang are visiting Shenzhen. They're mostly here on business, but we get to hang out with them a bit for meals and drinks. Only one of them I hadn't met previously. The two I have met are some of the nicest people I could know--a recently married couple Jia has known since at least middle school. They make me contemplate moving to Jia's hometown to work, but that would be really far and extremely cold.

As if I needed another reason to like my wife's friends, they gave me a reminder of how great they are. During dinner last night, my mother-in-law was talking about me and other foreigners for some reason (I didn't understand all of it and kind of zoned out a bit). King of the North piped in with, "He's not a foreigner, he's family." (in Chinese, of course). If he keeps it up, I might have to change the name of this blog.