Nanjing: Things I Love

I don't take the word "love" lightly. Yes, it's tossed around when people talk movies or music, but this list of Nanjinian things are not just frivolous statements of love. I'm coming up on three weeks in this sprawling city, and I love the normalcy I've felt. Isn't it odd how somewhere you've never been, somewhere seemingly so different from your life at home can feel so normal? Of course, there are aspects of China I've yet to embrace....the fact that people everywhere just hock loogies is something I will never appreciate. I have taken to look upwards when I walk for two reasons. One reason being the skyline is almost always more interesting than the ground, and the second being I just don't like seeing the wads of spit I inevitable step in. Yum.

Nanjing Museum- shortly before I was bombarded by college students who filmed me and asked for my signature. 

In all seriousness though, there are some things I do love about Nanjing and about China. For one, I'm enamored with the fruit stands and speckle every street corner. Bins piled high with vibrant oranges, artfully peeled pineapples with their green spiny tops peeking out from behind boxes of lychees, dragon fruit, apples, and pomelos. Breakfast used to be a trip to the school cafeteria, but I've taken to snitching from my fruit bowl and taking a swig of red date milk for that meal instead. The Asian pears here are especially good, and make for a great walking around snack. I'm especially partial to these oranges that I bought purely because they were so beautiful. Turns out, they are my absolute favorite....and are really pretty. Seriously, if you walk for more than 7 minutes in one direction you will hit a fruit stand. I've taken to keeping my little recyclable back in my camera bag just in case. It's delightful.

I can't be the only one who squeals at the site of a bin of tiny oranges. 

I love Muslim noodles. In every sense of the word, I love Muslim noodles. There are restaurants dotted around everywhere here, but you have to find the best ones. Luckily, one favorite haunt is just a stop over on the metro which is very convenient. There's also one rather smashing place right around church, and just a few restaurants down from this cute old man who sells the best cream puffs. Needless to say, every Sunday I stumble through ordering in my terrible Chinese, pointing to what other people have ordered, and then repeat everything in English and sit down to a bowl of delicious noodles, then a walk down to get cream puffs. Some weeks it's been pulled noodles in a salty broth, or pulled noodles with potatoes, peppers, and onions. I cannot tell you how delicious it is. As for the cream puffs, the first week I bought 2. The second week, it was 5. I don't want to say what last week's total was.

This is everything to me. 

And, of course, I completely love my kids I teach, but that will be another post entirely...probably more like 47 more posts, but yes. I do love my kids.

There will be more to come of course, but lastly I love Nanjing. I sorta love being stuffed in the metro while the man siting next to me screams into his phone in Mandarin, or when someone comes in holding the largest (and loudest) chirping black cricket I've ever seen. I really do love getting off at a random stop to discover the tiny old woman who makes these teeny fat pancakes that are stuffed with a thick custard. I love the random English words scrawled on sweaters and shoes. I am not sure I will grow to love the chicken feet and I know I won't ever love the loogies, but there are definitely things about China I do love.