Starbucks China – Tea & Spring 2010
Chinese are known tea drinkers. There are different types of tea for different season, ailment or what not. After their Chinese New Year and Valentines product, their new marketing products are geared towards cherry blossom and tea.
Full Leaf Brewed Tea
This morning at 10am, Starbucks offered for free a tall size tea drink to the first 100 customers. This enabled their regular customers to sample their new products such as Starbucks Oriental Beauty Oolong tea, Starbucks white mu dan tea and Bi Luo Chun Green Tea.
Each tea bag are uniquely packaged in a triangular shape. The tea bag can be used 12 times and contains full leaf tea. A box of 12 bags costs RMB 80. I tried the green tea and as usual, it’s bitter and needs a lot of sugar for me to drink it. Chinese drink different types of tea for different seasons. I’m not sure if Green tea is best for winter and white tea is best for summer or the other way around. Oolong tea is nice to mix with milk.
House MD – Season 5, Episode 4
I’ve been a fan of House MD since it started. Each episode has it’s own twist and turns which captures the audience attention. The setting is at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital where the initial lead cast of six is working. The six are Dr. Cuddy who’s the dean of medicine and hospital administrator, Dr. James Wilson, who is House’s best friend and an oncologist, Dr. Foreman, Dr. Cameron, Dr. Chase, diagnostic team of Dr. House and the antisocial, drug-addicted Dr. Gregory House, expert in diagnostic medicine.
From Season 1 to 3, the stories revolve around solving diseases affecting their patients. However, it ended with Dr. Foreman and Cameron resigning and Dr. Chase fired. In Season 4, House held a competition like interview process to form a new team. The new team is composed of plastic surgeon Dr. Taub, Number Thirteen Dr. Hadley and radical thinker Dr. Kutner. Dr. Foreman returned and join the group as Cuddy’s eyes and ears. Dr. Chase moved to the surgery department while Dr. Cameron moved to the ER. Dr. Wilson find a love interest in the form of “cutthroat bitch” Amber. Amber was part of the 40 doctors who vied to be part of House’s team. At the end of Season 4, Amber died due to fetching House from a bar as he was drunk. When Season 5 started, Dr. Wilson quit and severed ties with Dr. House.
Lanzhou Beef Noodles
Lanzhou is the capital of Gansu province located at the northwest part of China. Nestled between mountains, the weather is perfect and the scenery is superb. As the city has a significant Muslim population, Muslim restaurants and fast food chains are found in almost every corner. No McDonalds nor Starbucks but several KFC.
The most popular food in Lanzhou is the Lanzhou Beef Noodles (兰州拉面). This 
dish was first created during the reign of Emperor Guangxu (1875 – 1908), Qing Dynasty (1616 – 1911). It has five main features: clear soup, white radish, red pepper, green caraway and yellow noodles. The noodles can be wide or slim to meet different preferences. A bowl of beef noodles cost 10 to 20 yuan and takes only a few minutes to prepare. According to a local, the best place to eat these noodles are in Muslim restaurants.
We had a chance to try this dish and it was huge and filling. It taste like any other noodles but maybe we just don’t know how to mix everything. Our guide put some vinegar on his noodle and spicy sauce so maybe that’s why he finished everything.
10 Things I Love About China
On my previous blog, I’ve written ten things I hate about China. Just like in any thing we shouldn’t just look at the bad in things but the good as well. As such, here are things I love about China.
1. Low Utility Fees – the government control the utility fees and for the past 3 years I’ve been in Beijing, I spend roughly 50 rmb for Electricity each month. Water fee is also minimal and we don’t have any restrictions on how much you use. I know I know.. I should conserve water which I do.
New Concept: Toilet Dining!
When the dark restaurant became a fad in Beijing, my Friday dining group went to one of these restaurants to experience it. It was relatively expensive as the waiters need to wear night vision goggles to lead you to your table and serve your food. You order and pay for your food at the lobby area and leave your things in the locker before they lead you to your seats. It was messy, fun and quite an experience. You get to appreciate more those who were born with visual difficulties.
Ten Things I Hate About China
Having lived here for almost 5 years. You get used to all the quirks and cultural differences that the Chinese have. However, there are still things which you cannot stand and here are the top ten things I hate about China.
1. Smoking – I’m a non-smoker and I can’t stand people smoke around me. In China, people don’t care if you hate smoking or not. I hope I don’t get diseases related to second-hand smoking.
2. Spitting – You walk around the city and every few meters or so, you’ll see saliva. It’s even gross to see it freeze on the floor when it’s winter. It’s not just spitting that’s so gross but the sound they make before they spit. Eww.. gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. BTW.. there’s a fine of RMB 50 IF they catch you spitting. That’s a major IF.