In China does not use daylight save time

Last night I read on the Spanish newspaper that time was going to change. I thought that may be I could sleep one more hour, but I was not lucky. Although in China everything changes quite a lot and very quickly, they do not have the daylight save time.

I was happy I got up early this morning because I went for hiking at the Great Wall in a non-tourist location and I managed to breathe a lot of pure air. The last couple of days, Beijing´s skies were completely covered with fog and the pollution underneath.

In order to follow the culinary lead from last article I can tell you that last night I cooked my first paella in China. I could not have all the ingredients, but the result was reasonable. One of the guess told me where to find saffron for the next time. You can find it at the pharmacies of the Chinese traditional hospitals.

A shame I did not know it the day before that I was in one of those pharmacies. I was lucky of not going as a patient, but as companion. It was interesting to see how it worked. A big bulleting board with pictures and explanation of each doctor helps you to chose one of them. You have to pay in advance a 10 Eur fee for each visit. For the same price we were few at the doctor office: the patience, the doctor, an interpreter and myself. After a long list of questions and the measurement of the pace the doctor wrote the list of medicines. Then, we had to go to the pharmacy of the hospital where they prepared the combination of herbs (very interesting). Next step was to boil them for which were taken to a different place. Next day you have to go to pick them up in sealed bags.

I am trying to look also for the formula of how to seal the Chinese characters on my head, so they do not evaporate. However, I have not founded the way to do it yet and I have serious evaporation problems. I have the hope that with the cool weather the evaporation of characters decreases. In the mean time I will keep looking they way of how to seal them…

Spanish Weekend

This weekend I had a lot of Spanish contact. On Friday I went to the Spain National day celebrated at the Spanish embassy in Beijing. On Saturday I went to first Spanish Omelettes competition.

When going to the embassy I had an alternative plan, as I did not know if I was going to be accepted without invitation. In the end, a warm “buenas noches” (good evening) was enough to get in.

The cocktail was very packed of people celebrating the Hispanity Day (12th of October). I did not find any controversy about the flag as it seems to happened in Spain.

These type of cocktails tend to be a perfect way to make networking. Although in this occasion I could feel that people where more with a party mood than anything else. Even the ambassador was there until the last moment. As well as the day after at the Spanish Omelette Context where he was member of the judge.

About the Spanish Omelette competition I knew about it from an Email received from Madrid (Thank you Chema!). In order to support the international dimension of the competition I went togetether with two colleagues from class. One French and another Lithuanian. During our trip on the underground we also added a Chinese whom we were speaking during our trip and decided to joined us. We arrived a bit latte as to form part of the participating groups, but at a good time to test the omelettes. The official drink Spanish beer Mahou, which just arrived to China.

Wine Torrederos Selección

Just befote the grape harvest starts at my home region Ribera del Duero, the wine magazine Wine Spectator biweekly bulleting issued an special edition about Spanish wine. One of the wines of my family´s winery Torrederos Seleccion was one of the top scored wines with 93 points.

I received the news from China while drinking a green tea. In China there is almost not wine culture although the market starts to weak up. However, the tea culture is very strong in this part of the world. Here is very common to have tea during meals. Even myself have started to adopt this custom of having tea or a warm drink during meals.

There are many tea shops that carry out what is called “tea ceremonies”. During those ceremonies all details are well taken care of: 1) The tea type; 2) Type of cup and ceramic; 3) Proper way to serve the tea; 4) Separated cup to appreciate the smell of the tea; 5) Correct way to take the cup, which varies for women (with a fenix shape – fortune) and men (with a han form – strength); and 6) The number of zips to drink it, which should be three in reference to happiness, good luck and long life.

Although tea and wine are completely different type of drinks, you can find some affinities between both cultures. When I read the news the other day about Torrederos Seleccion I did not have the chance to compare both cultures and I had to continuous with my tea as I did not have a bottle of Torrederos wine near by.