We’ve been eating a lot of noodles lately.  Why?  Because they are cheap and the restaurant is close.  This little bowl cost $1.25.  I don’t believe I ever mentioned this, but we used to have a lady come to our apartment and cook twice a week.  Here’s a picture of her…

Yes, I made her hold the ginormous prawns so they were smooching.  When we first moved here, I was spending around $30 on five things from the import store. 5 things!!!???  It’s so expensive to buy stuff from home, but sometimes you have to when you can’t read labels and Ch!nese style cooking is not in your repetoire.  Believe it or not, having someone come to cook Ch!nese style food was much more budget friendly….and fun. It sounds insane, I know.  We were so spoiled by this woman just as we were spoiled by the deli and lettuce in a bag in the States.  lol.  A friend (who she also worked for) needed her for more hours, so she can’t come to our place anymore.  We’re missing her in more ways than one.  One of them being that it was good for our health.  In the last month, with the move and her not coming, we’ve been eating out more than ever.  We’ve also felt overly anxious and stressed as well.

We camped in last weekend and I did all the cooking morning til’ night.  Monday morning I was standing in the shower thinking, feeling unusually calm, happy and Bingo! it hit me.  MSG.  MSG. MSG.  It is such a key ingredient in the food here.  They sell it 50lb bags in the groceries.  I’ve seen them shake it over veggies to the point where it looks like a glittery Valentine’s day card.  How can plain ol’ stir fried lettuce taste amazingly good?  I mean AMAZING, the best lettuce your tongue has ever met.  MSG, that’s how.  I’ve read and heard that MSG is bad stuff and now I’m a believer.  It’s bad.  If you have to eat it, drink lots and lots of water.  We’ve been pretty much off it for a week and have felt better than ever.

But, we love those darn noodles, so I attempted to make them myself.  First step, go to the store and buy noodles.  Seems simple enough….

until you have to pick which noodles.  I could safely rule out the greenish brown tinted ones and anything that was clear.  That only left thirty more to examine.  I went with the brick o’ noodles…

How do they make them layer like that?  I made a broth and cooked the veggies, added the brick, threw in some stones and here you have it:

It doesn’t quite glisten like the restaurant’s but, it was tasty.  There’s definitely room for improvement.  If anyone has any good Asian style recipes, could ya help a sister out and send them my way?  Thanks.  And on that note, it’s time to think about lunch!  I hope you’re all having an MSG free weekend.  hugs.   

I’ve been awake since 4am.  I tried all sorts of go back to sleep techniques, but it wasn’t going to happen folks.  So here I am.

Here’s a shot of the moon from my soon to be old office window—it is still so huge and bright.  I’ve never seen that before.

What actually got me out of bed is this:

It’s a boat full of fishing birds.  My friend John told me about them before we moved here and in all honesty I thought he was nuts.  Sorry John.  🙂  Anyway, it works like this:  the birds are tied to the boat, they go into the water after a fish, catch the fish, and go back to their perch.  Why don’t they go ahead and eat the fish?  Because the fisher-lady puts a steel ring of sorts around the bird’s neck to prevent the fish from going down the chute.  I have to say, I was more intrigued with the fisher-lady’s glistening strand of pearls.  For $1 I could have gotten a private demo of the fishing process, but I passed.  So, there you have it John.  Fishing birds really do exist in China!