The Second Stop - Dongguan

We initially made plans to spend about a day in Dongguan then make our way to Guangzhou for some sightseeing. Plans.. being plans.. disappeared the moment we met our brood of relatives on my grandmother's side. There were so many of them, till now, I still can't identify some of them in my photos.

We went for some of my craziest dinners ever. Presenting the photographic evidence, I now know how the saying about how the Chinese eat everything that fly, swim, crawl or move.


We had the 'Hundred Bird Back to Nest' Hotpot,

The wok was located in the middle of a table, with its contents stir-fried while we ate claypot rice with the contents. The contents ... were... whatever birds that you could think of. I knew something was up when my Dad picked up the tiniest fried sparrow from the wok. Then the waitress told us that the wok had peacock, sparrow, dove, pheasant, wild duck... I stopped listening after peacock ....


I was introduced to 天地一号, a fruit vinegar drink to aid digestion, which was manufactured in Guangzhou. I personally quite liked it alot, especially after the exotic feast.

Next stop, the beef feast ...


I am a maneater now. Officially. This blurry photo is actually the remnants of double-ox penis soup. The penises were removed from the soup, chopped into pieces and eaten after being dipped in soy sauce. Yes, I had some. With beef lung, kidney, marrow. Penis was good. Like eating a giant chunk of tendon. *demonic laughter*

One of my best and most memorable dinners was at the farm that my relative owned.

And who says that a person owning a farm is poor? Please shake that thought out of your mind. That building and the hill in the distance? Belongs to my granduncle as well, not to mention the farm that I was taking the photo in. He owns a pig farm that supplies Guangzhou and the surrounding regions, owns 300 mu of land, fish farm, duck & chicken farm and the 3 star hotel that we were staying in Dongguan. Coming from a farming background, he went into construction as a bricklayer and worked his way up.

My granduncles caught 3 ducks from the lake for soup. Skinned 2 chickens from the farm, fished from the fish pond. Everything was caught from around us and prepared freshly in front of our eyes.

I was really touched at the effort everyone made for us. The farm was seriously out of the way, that day happened to be the day that Guangzhou started raining after a dry spell for close to 3 1/2 months, the roads were all muddy and almost impossible to drive into. They carried huge boxes of sauces and vegetables on foot. We left feeling terribly touched and guilty that we burdened these kind relatives for so many days as they went out of their ways to drive us around, feed us with the best that they can find.

I tried to make do as much appreciation as I could show with my meager Cantonese, but my only regret was that I couldn't understand as much as I could due to their accent. Chicken speaking with the Duck.