Stumbles Upon

When you travel, there are things you plan. You know you want to see sight A or eat food B or experience cultural activity C. (They probably have better names than single letters from the Latin alphabet. Incidentally, the license plates in China use the Latin alphabet.)

There are also the things you didn't plan, you just stumble upon them. Some of these are weird, some are interesting, and some are fabulous. I had something of a stumble upon day (and Alrica joined me for part of it.)

While Alrica was getting some work done, I went for a walk. My plan was to visit a park that was only 30 minutes away. To get there, I had to cross a canal where there were people swimming. It was almost like the park had a moat.

I discovered the park is fenced and there are only a few ways in. And you need to get an admission ticket. It is very inexpensive, just 2 yuan, which is about $0.29. I could have absolutely afforded it. But I just wanted to walk. I wasn't looking for any special park services.

So instead, I decided to walk along the canal. There were walking paths on its sides. I'm glad I did as it was very interesting. 

In addition to a small number of people swimming in the canal, there were a much greater number of people fishing in the canal. These were always men. I never saw any women fishing. I saw plenty of women walking, but they did not stop to fish. 

Some fishermen had surprisingly long poles with a hinge. They attached the bar of the pole to the railing and then bent it at the hinge so the long pole stuck down to the water's surface. Others had poles of a more traditional type, but their reels were bigger, like the size of a bread plate, and shaped like a wagon wheel with spokes.

Fishermen at a canal isn't so rare. What was rarer was the slingshot man. I came to a place where the walkway passed under a highway. There, in the shadow of the span overhead, set about 15 meters or 50 feet away from the path were these metal racks with metal and plastic objects hanging from strings. Think cowbells and soup cans and bleach bottles. At the side of the path was a man with a slingshot. He was pulling back the elastic band and letting small bullets (like ball bearings) fly at the targets. Sometimes I knew he hit one because I heard the satisfying metallic clunk. When he was done, he packed up his slingshot and bullets. But the targets weren't his. They remain there under the overpass for anyone who wants to sling. 

I took a different route back to the hotel from the canal. I happened to pass these open gates that seemed to have some sort of market within. Turns out I had accidentally discovered the Panjiayuan Market. It's huge, spanning several blocks in both the east-west and north-south directions. Within are tables and stands in the open air. There are frames that hold fabric above to block much of the sun, but not walls. 

That's not wholly true. There is a section of the market which is inside a building. Here you find carpentry, hand-crafted furniture, antique books, antique vases, and statuary. In the open-air section are crafts. There were so many beads made from wood, jade, stone, and who knows what else. In one section, each shop had beads of a different color. There were lots of bracelets and other jewelry. There were hand-crafted wooden toys, fabric vendors, paintings, and calligraphy. 

There were a few stalls selling food and milk tea drinks. There was also a post office. But this is not a market meant for foreign tourists. There were a few foreigners beside me, but hardly any. Almost everyone, vendor and customer alike, was Chinese. 

It turned out the market was just a couple blocks from our hotel. So later in the day, I took Alrica there to see it for herself. And on that excursion, we experienced our coolest stumble upon of the day. 

Alrica wanted some good dumplings for dinner. She played around on AMap, the mapping app that works in China, and found a place called Ersanjiupin Handmade Dumplings Self-service. It was a bit further from our hotel than the market, so we hit the market on the way. 

Finding the dumpling restaurant wasn't easy. Thank goodness some people posted reviews which included pictures of the building. A couple of the reviews were in English.  Of course, most are in Chinese, and AMap doesn't auto-translate. Luckily, one of the reviews in English indicated that the restaurant was on the third floor. So bit by bit, we progressed and we found it. 

This restaurant, Ersanjiupin Handmade Dumplings Self-service, is not only full of delicious foods, but it is a fun experience. First, you pay. The cost is 49 yuan per person (which is about $7) plus you pay a deposit (about $3.50.) A deposit at a restaurant? I'll get to that. 

This buys you a table, so you go sit down. At one end of the table is a metal pot full of water. One of the staff turned on the heat for us since we must have looked like we didn't know what we were doing (which was true.) As you wait for the water to boil, you have foods to collect. 

Let's talk dumplings. The restaurant hand makes the dumplings. When a set of dumplings is ready, they are placed, uncooked, on a little wooden tray with high sides. In front of the kitchen area is a refrigerator, but not the upright kind you have in your kitchen. This is the kind shaped like a footlocker with a sliding door on top. Along the top are labels telling you which kind of dumpling is in that spot. All the signs are in Chinese, so we had to do a lot of translating. You open the refrigerator, take out the trays of dumplings you want, and bring them back to the table. 

On the wall behind the pot of water are instructions. These are also in Chinese, but after translating, we learned the rules. Once the water boils, you can start cooking the dumplings. Vegetarian dumplings should be cooked for 5 minutes. Meat dumplings should be cooked for 6 minutes. They recommend you boil about 18 dumplings at a time. And you have an overall time limit of 90 minutes at the restaurant. 

But the dumplings aren't the only food available. There is also a big area like a salad bar, but it isn't just salads. It holds all kinds of cold foods, dishes from many regions of China. There were clams, dishes with gray noodles, some sorts of prepared chicken, roast pork on the bone, fruit, noodle dishes, and rice dishes. You take rectangular plates from under the bar and then fill them with the cold dishes. 

You can go back as many times as you want to both the dumpling fridge and to the cold food bar. There was even a drink dispenser. I had some sort of drink that tasted like a combination of cola and ginger ale. Not sure what it was, but I liked it. 

Even more exciting, Alrica noticed that beside the dumpling refrigerator was a freezer with different flavors of ice cream! All this and bowls of ice cream? Woohoo! As it was all you can eat, we ate a lot. But we were lightweights compared to many of the other patrons. They must train for this. We could see stacks and stacks of empty dumpling trays at the end of their tables. 

When you are all done you bring up your ticket that you got when you paid. The ticket includes the time that you entered. So long as you are leaving within 90 minutes, they credit you back the deposit. We did stay less than 90 minutes, so I can't say for sure what happens if you take too long. I suspect they keep the deposit. 

It was great food and a lot of fun to do. And that is the best kind of unplanned stumble upon.