Changsha, Hunan province, was…another big city in China. Huge, smoggy, bustling, but with this specific advantage: Hunan food!
We had merely one day in which to tour the city – unless you count from 10:00pm-12:00am in which we argued with taxi drivers, figured out which airport shuttle to take instead of taking a taxi, navigated the metro, and finally found the correct alley in which our hostel was tucked by using Google maps and alternately pointing at the written address and asking people “zai nar” (where?). I know, we’re just impressive like that.
So what did we do for our one day? We slept in. Also, as previously alluded to, we visited Starbucks (dealer in fine WiFi) and the McDonalds ice cream stand. That second one almost made us lose our Backpacker cards but luckily we also partook of some local cuisine, despite the iffy condition of James’ digestion.
We had no idea what restaurant to try – there are so many and they all looked about the same. But we stumbled upon a place than specialized in crawfish and it did not disappoint. As we were cracking into the crawfish (served whole, minus the head) we noticed the spices floating in the pot: sticks of cinnamon, star anise, Chinese cardamom, slices of ginger, dried red peppers, a few unidentified things, and (I think) either bay or tarragon leaves. Do you realize what that combination of spices make? (excepting the peppers) Chai! delicious masala chai- minus the tea, of course). Needless to say, our chai crawfish were delicious.
The beef dish was also tasty. Something has been coming to my attention through my Asian travels and Hunan put an exclamation point on it. We Westerners (at least Americans?) tragically underuse our herbs and spices. Perhaps we are afraid of garlic breath, being speared by stalks of lemongrass, or the pungent flavor of raw sprigs of cilantro. But after eating beef tossed with cilantro and crawfish with logs of cinnamon floating in the pot, I reaffirm the importance of whole, large herbs and spices. In our home city that usually means eating cloves of garlic – which are both delicious and nutritious (however I would caution against ingesting large chunks of ginger).
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- Starbucks mooncakes
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- poodle with…a heart?
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- our hostel
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- overlooking Changsha
On the way back we happened past a river where crowds, literally crowds of people, were lined along the sidewalk or perched on benches (one man even sitting on a lidded trashcan) just chatting or playing games or singing with fairly obnoxious portable karaoke machines. Much of the activity paused as we passed so that the gauntlet of people could give full attention to our two person show as it paraded its way to the metro. We had seen very few foreigners in the city and apparently they hadn’t seen many either.
Having nothing else to do, weheaded over to Yuelu park – which is to Changsha somewhat like what Central Park is to New York, except with old tombs, an older Buddhist temple, and plenty of paved walking paths. The park was alright – though a few miles’ walk uphill. And despite the fact that my Air Quality app said Changsha’s air was “good,” the view from the top was so smoggy that we could hardly see any buildings at all in the city of 7,000,000.
Educational side note: the university near the park (now called Hunan University) is the school Chairman Mao attended, hence the statue of their most famous alumnus (pictured).
We left the next morning. Note to self: remember when in big cities to allow 2 hours to get to the airport instead of one. The traffic was so backed up that we only got on the plane by a prayer. I mean we got there less than 15 minutes before it was scheduled to take off. However, seeing it was a smaller propeller plane…(I thought those were retired) they didn’t appear to be in any rush.
Trip Log 8.24.14