China’isms – Part One

Today was bring your wife to work day! We’re on the outbound to shanghai by way of train – supplier visit – train – supplier visit- train. Since we checked out of the hotel room this morning I tagged along to LongChen and hid out in the corner of their conference room sucking up the free WiFi to push peanut butter whiskey on the masses while they plotted a world takeover one EGR valve at a time.

Oh China…

China is a challenge.

 

That’s the best way I think I can sum it up. Some of you are probably sitting there going, ‘well, duh, Chelsea… what did you expect?’

Wuhan, China: giving the street food of Hubu Alley a shot

Yesterday evening we decided to pay homage to Anthony Bourdain and venture over to Hubu Alley, a well known Mecca of street food here in Wuhan with over a hundred vendors hawking their fares.

We had been doing a little shopping beforehand so we hopped in a DiDi (China’s version of Uber) and got to Hubu right as the hustle and bustle was beginning. Vendors were all just starting to set up their carts and it was CRAZY the difference an hour made. It went from an open alley where we could walk pretty freely to being shoulder to shoulder packed, with a high chance of getting accidentally impaled by a haphazard bump into a skewer.

An afternoon on TanHuaLin, the boho hideout of Wuhan

I first heard of Tan Hua Lin in a blip of an article talking about cute, local coffee shops in Wuhan. If I remember correctly, the author described Tan Hua Lin as a “bohemian, artists’ street” and it was immediately clear I would be making my way there at some point during this trip.

After breakfast while lounging around the room, I realized this was our only true free weekend in Wuhan, so Tate and I decided it was time to head out of our little Hilton home-away-from-home and see the city.

Preparing for The People’s Republic

Two weeks from today, at about this exact time, we will be touching down in Shanghai.