Cheers to Ben for loaning it to me. Eye opening and mouth closing. If you live in a country that doesn’t have Blockbuster or Netflicks, I’ve heard it’s also available via torrent download.

The review extolled the place as Suzhou’s hidden sub-continental jewel, an unassuming restaurant oddly named “Olive” situated just off Shiquan Jie right beneath Q’s Club on the far eastern end of the bar street. I hadn’t had any authentic Indian food in ages, and being that it was Saturday night and we had nothing but a Wii Mario Kart tournament planned — off we went.

The MORE review called the place “unassuming”, and they were right. Tucked 20-30 metres down the little alley that empties on to Shiquan Jie, we had to look twice before finding. But I suppose the best places are worth hunting for. Approaching the restaurant I was a bit worried the place might be reveling in the good press it had received and be too busy to accommodate us.

My concerns were quickly put to rest as we entered the place to our choice of empty tables in the vacant restaurant. Now my wife has drilled into me that in China when a restaurant is empty, you go elsewhere. Like not sticking your chopsticks in your rice, or always ordering more food than you need, these are the rules of dining out in China.

Pushing the snooze button on my wife-ingrained alarm bells, we sat down and were quickly brought a menu by the eager wait staff. Pricing was reasonable. Not cheap, but on par with the pseudo-Indian food that can be got out at Singha Plaza in SIP near where we live. I’ve gotten into the habit of judging a restaurant’s cost by how much they charge for Chinese domestic beer — and Olive hits the higher end of this, with >10 RMB for your basic Tsingtao (more for those little dark stubbies or the imports).

All-said we downed a bowl of Chicken Tikka Masala, a bowl of Rogan Josh, three hot-out-of-the-oven pieces of naan bread and a couple drinks for around 150 RMB. The food was amazing, and while I’ve never been to India, certainly hits my unknowing standards of “authentic”.

In talking with one of the owners after our meal he mentioned they’ll soon be changing the name to something more “Indian” themed — Delhi Palace — in an effort to curb the confusion that a very Mediterranean-sounding “Olive” moniker brings. He also grabbed my # and mentioned that they plan to occasionally host buffet-style parties in the upstairs.

While the price tag puts the place in the middle-upper end of Suzhou dining, the food definitely earns it, and I am looking forward to heading back there soon.

Dongbei Seabug

As many of my friends pack up and head out to face the torrent of travel over the May Holiday, I’m just happy to finally have a moment to sit down and type randomness on here.

My mother-in-law arrived from Dalian Thursday evening and while Maggie and her enter day three of non-stop-family-gossip, I’m hiding out in my office and finally getting done things that have been on my todo list so long they could be sold at auction.

First things first – what the hell is that sea creature in the picture above? Never was a piece of seafood that called into question the civility of eating any of the sea’s tasty and entirely creepy looking critters more than that. Maggie’s parents, being the amazing people they are spent the night before her mom travelled here preparing an entire suitcase full of food for us.

A plate of tasty dongbei prawns

Knowing their daughter’s and her laowai husband’s insatiable love for seafood, and Suzhou’s lack of it; they packed up fried fish, squid, a bunch of the unidentified seabugs above and absolutely massive prawns (about 6″ from tip to tail). For good measure they also threw in about 5 packages of dried squid jerky (surprisingly tasty snack), a big chunk of beef, some sausages, and a few pigs feet (I love my wife, I do, but if ever there was something that called that into question – watching her chew through the hoof of my bacon would be it).

Maggie’s mom will be here for a week, which is great. I know Maggie’s parents worry about her living so far away from them, and so it’s good for her mom to be a bit of an ambassador for our lifestyle here. Already we’ve impressed her with our apartment, the relative tranquility of our neighbourhood, and the cuteness of Button (who can’t get enough of the attention she’s getting).

I’m not sure where it comes from, and I don’t know if all son-in-laws feel this way, but assuring Maggie’s parents that we’re safe, secure and sufficiently well-off always weighs heavy on my mind.

Maybe it comes from the fact that they’ve bucked many Chinese-in-law stereotypes and so graciously accepted me, a foreigner, as part of their family. Never have they made me feel different, nor have they ever criticized or “warned” Maggie about the evils of getting involved with “laowai”.

They are traditional Chinese parents in so many ways, but in this they feel a bit different, at least different from what stories I’ve heard from others. I appreciate that more than I can express, and perhaps my desire to put any fears they may have (real or not) to rest stems from that.

Tiān Píng Shān (天平山)

Me, about halfway up Tianping Shan - taken by Elvina.

And now with absolutely no segue at all — Tiān Píng Shān.

Mags and I headed to this hiking spot with friends Glen and Elvina last weekend and quite enjoyed it. Suzhou’s littered with great little day-trips that allow you to break from the haze and monotony of city life, unfortunately I don’t take advantage of this near enough.

Tiān Píng Shān, while dubbed a “mountain”, is more a big hill on the south-western fringes of Suzhou in the small hamlet of Mudu. A couple years back we headed to another big hill in Mudu called Líng Yán Shān (灵岩山), and were keen to repeat the hike (my flabby ass needs the exercise).

What we hadn’t counted on was that in an effort to attract the under-marketed to (for hiking at least) under-agers, Tiān Píng Shān was hosting a big cartoon character festival at its base. After an hour on an insanely cramped city bus, wading through crowds of kids all vying to get their picture taken with a rather poor representation of Winnie-the-Pooh was a bit to deal with.

Thankfully kids make whiny climbers and so most parents opted to keep them off the actual mountain — there were a few brave parents that balked this convention and were rewarded with having to piggyback their little split-pant nose-picker up and down the mountain.

As with every Chinese hike up a “mountain” I’ve ever been on, stairs had been carved the whole way up. Emboldened by having friends with us, we decided to off-road it a bit and found our own boulder-bounding path the majority of the way up. The trip was a lot of fun, despite forcing me to recognize just how out of shape I am. Pear-ish is a shape, right? It was also a great experience hanging out with Glen and Elvina. Glen, some may have noticed, has also recently joined the writers over at Lost Laowai.

Sanya Bay

Alright, I could pretend like the week and a half since we returned from Sanya was used to properly reflect on the vacation before I post final thoughts about China’s only tropical destination. But that would be a lie.

Every time I go on vacation I think to myself, “Hey, why the hell am I not doing this ALL the time. This is great! Problems are so far away. The air is fresh. The food it fantastic. Life is moving at a pace I am entirely comfortable with.” Then I get home — load up the 200+ e-mails, overflowing RSS reader, and super-long task list — and I remember why one week a year off(line) is such a challenge.

I left off last time complaining about the DaDongHai beach and saying I was going down for a sunset swim. We nixed the swim and just walked along the beach admiring the sunset. Eventually we tracked down the location where we got married (three palms in a bit of a V-shape) and reflected on that hectic day and the sometimes hectic, but mostly wonderful two years that have followed.

A horse, of coruse, at sunset in Sanya

The next day was our anniversary and for dinner we had made reservations at a hotel in the Da Dong Hai area called the Resort Intime Sanya. The hotel has a nightly BBQ buffet and Maggie loves buffets (anyone that’s met me is probably thinking, “and what, you don’t tubby?” – and they’d be right, but man, the girl LOVES buffets).

The food was great. Though the standard buffet stuff was mediocre (for the 150RMB/person price tag at least), the long line of BBQs grilling and frying up all the meat and seafood your heart could desire balanced it out. Dining is all outside, set around a large koi pond that features a small stage in its center that was playing host to a (what appeared to be Filipino) duet performing covers of soft-rock hits in Chinese, Russian and English.

Fishing Boats & Sanya Sunset

For the last couple days in Sanya we basically just chillaxed. Before heading down we had made plans to visit some of the typical tourist trappings (Monkey Island, Nantian Hot Springs, ethnic villages, etc.), but in the end we agreed that chilling out by the sea was far more appealing. It was a vacation at all, and I was doing my best to momentarily forget about planning, scheduling, crowds, etc.

Our last night in Sanya we decided to grab a bite at a Western restaurant just outside where we were staying. The place, Fat Daddy’s, is run by an expat named Sheldon who made the move down to Sanya a few years ago after spending a number in Shanghai. While there I happened to run into Mario Cavolo, a speaker and trainer who also runs the Sanya Expat site.

I chatted to both about what life was like as an expat living down there, and I gotta say – it’s appealing – but more on that later.

For now, I need to resume the mass game of “catch-up” I’ve been playing for the past week and a half. Seriously, why can’t the world stop while I’m on vacation?

Maggie @ Sanya Bay sunset

Palms and the Sunset

However, a little vodka’n'cranberry therapy at hand, it’s time I tackle a topic I’ve been meaning to address for a while now – the biggest bone of contention between my wife and I. Yup, it’s food.

Coming from two wildly different cultures, it’s likely of little surprise that we differ quite a lot. I’m outgoing, she’s introverted; I joke, she scowls (even at my best material); she’s fit, I’m … not; I’m flexible mentally, she’s flexible physically; I’m creative, she’s practical; I grew up playing with Transformers, she grew up playing with dirt (a fact she loves to remind me of when I get a bit too bourgeois for her commie sensibilities).

But despite, or perhaps because of, all our differences we get along amazingly well – except when it comes to food.

You only need to take a quick look at me to realize I am a man that likes to eat. I really enjoy food. And because I enjoy food, I also enjoy the creation of food. I like the idea that I can go into the kitchen and make something that is nearly as decent to eat as a good restaurant. I like finishing putting together a meal, sitting down and enjoying it.

My wife is much more utilitarian when it comes to food. Whether she likes something or not is largely based on two factors – is it healthy, and therefore something she can use to benefit herself; or is it food she’s eaten all her life, and therefore unquestionably comfortable.

The first bit irritates me, but I could certainly lose a few pounds, so am not at all opposed to eating healthily. I, perhaps mistakenly, assume that healthy food can taste good as well.

But that second part – there’s no rationale.

This penchants for only eating that which is familiar is a trait I’ve seen wide-spread across China, and it’s a pain in the ass. Commonly, cuisine neatly falls into the well-worn structure that seems to permeate the entire country:

• Home
• Home Town
• Province
• Region
• Country
• Foreign

Allegiance, dialect, gastronomical preference… it all sits in the same framework.

For me, I look at food like I look at music. I enjoy music. I have my preferences, but because I appreciate music for music’s sake, I can easily recognize quality music even when it sits outside the sphere I’m comfortable with.

Good music is, quite simply, good music. And, I believe, good food is good food.

As such, I love eating all kinds of food, and all nations’ food. So, to me I look at a week and see an opportunity to try food from seven different places – each one unique from the last.

So when my wife suggests that eating so much “foreign food” is too much and feels we should do 50/50 Chinese/Foreign (to be fair) – I protest. I protest because I really don’t want to eat that much Chinese food, but I also protest on principle.

To me this doesn’t just boil down to “cultural differences”, it is just bad math. Thai food, or Indian food, or Japanese food are no closer to my “home town food” than Chinese food. It’s wrong that it be lumped in with it.

Fortunately the saving grace in all this is that more than health and comfort, my wife just loathes cooking. She does it, and she’s good at it, but she doesn’t take any joy from it. It’s a task that must be done and is not meant to be enjoyed.

And as I’ve stated, I quite like cooking. So, after months, years really, of arguing about this we’re shifting tactics. Whereas we’ve always split cooking duties, starting today I am our home’s sole chef.

I’ve free range to cook whatever I want, but must make a solid effort to cook Chinese dishes a couple times a week. I get to take the reigns in the kitchen, and as a trade off Maggie gets out of ever having to lift a spatula or learn the difference between tomato sauce and ketchup.

We’ll see how it goes. I can easily foresee some potholes in the path ahead, but I’m pretty excited to finally have an excuse to really explore cooking. All recipes graciously accepted.

It’s a sad fact that I have absolutely no motivation to cook for just myself, and with Maggie working until 9 o’clock most nights, it leaves me scrounging for easy to prepare dinner. Pizza, with no surprise, has become the answer.

At 7.90 RMB a slice, it’s not the cheapest thing you can buy for eating here, but it kicks the pants off a plate of jiao zi (dumplings). Now, you may be saying to yourself… “Walmart, pizza? Wha?” And if you are, talking to yourself is a sign of mindloss, don’t challenge the pizza – ya nut.

It should be explained that Walmart here is 50% home goods and 50% full-on supermarket, not the 70/30 ratio that they were/are in Canada (at least when I left), so when I say “pizza” I mean oven-baked goodness, not frozen in a box stuff or anything of the sort.

Honestly, it’s great. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve not had real pizza in so long the Chinese versions are starting to be alright, but I had pizza at the local Pizza King a few months back, and have had it various other places since getting here and it was always startlingly craptastic. Maybe we just have to admit, Walmart can do things right.

Maggie, after asking what I ate for dinner the other day, gave me a flash of her qwirky smile and exclaimed, “Again!?” To which I very proudly pointed out that I’ve eaten Chinese food for in around 400+ days and no one says “you ate Chinese food AGAIN last night…” Honestly, don’t get between me and pizza.

Now sitting here with a glass of wine (2 bottles of not hot, but not bad, Cab Sav for 36 RMB) and the pizza I have to reflect on the fact that I very definitely went to Walmart today NOT to buy pizza. I recognized early in the day that I was going to have the now all-too-common challenge of deciding for myself what to eat, and made the resolute decision to lay off the stuff today and settle for the more traditional (and equally convenient) bao zi. However, the pusher that she is, the woman selling the pizza conned me into getting not just my regular two slices, but she threw in a third free to sweeten the deal. She took one look at me and knew my “jin tian wo bu yao xie xie” was about as valuable as an yi fen note ($0.0014).

Meh, pizza and wine… really, I’m not going to beat myself up over it.