East Meets East (Liz is in India
Aaron is in China)

Liz - Thanks for joining me!  I was beginning to think after a few entries of me rambling to an entity named Liz that readers would start questioning my sanity.  Thank you for stopping the inevitable intervention.  As for your “requisite introduction,” what kind of Indian temple doubles as an amusement park?  It reminds me of the time I voluntarily entered the Church of Scientology in Washington D.C., except that there were no rides and I was not amused.  Just to let you know, I’m personally just as eager to hear about the most mundane in’s and out’s of Guragon.  The city’s name, by the way, sounds scary to me.  Like a dragon with…uh, gurs?  Definitions of “gur” from the web: (1) short for guru, (2) an area of a golf course being repaired, (3) coarse brown sugar, and (4) a group of Niger-Congo languages spoken primarily in southeastern Mali and norhtern Ghana = all scary when combined with a dragon!  Please dispel my fears by use of photographs, video, and commentary.

I have one more day of mid-terms at my university and then it’s back to regularly scheduled posting.  In the meantime, the first in a frivolous series I like to call “Things I’ve Eaten Lately”: The above was last night’s dinner, courtesy of 上海毛蟹, the seasonal hairy crabs that Shanghainese go crazy over every autumn (Eriocheir sinensis, formerly under the dubious family Grapsidae and now placed in Varunidae (wikipedia) - I sense some intrigue within the scientific community surrounding this switch…readers? I’m too lazy busy studying to do the research right now.).  My dad and I steamed them at home and he taught me the very rigid procedure of taking it apart and eating each and every last part of its flesh and orangey egg sack.  Like all asian-style seafood, it all tasted fine after a good dosing with vinegar and ginger.  If you’re wondering, no, it’s not pleasant to place a furry ligament into your mouth.

The crabs themselves famously live in 阳澄湖, Yangcheng Lake, in Suzhou west of Shanghai, where they have been (over)fished for thousands of years (is there any other span of time possible when talking about China?).  Crabs and sales are down this year because of any number of reasons (the kind of speculation that Shanghaiist is good for - do you think there is a Guragonist?).  Curiously, I don’t see these crabs in the farmer’s market across the street for me; I think they’re all kept under lock and key with restaurants and special retailers?  My dad actually got these as a gift from a business partner!  (Fourth-grade-me really really wants Present-me to write: “What a crabby present.”)