Writes of Passage

Dad meets his youngest uncle in Jinan, who’s a couple of years his junior (also from a concubine).  Shandong cuisine which is nicknamed Lucai 鲁菜 cuisine Lu is one of the eight regional Chinese cuisines.

1. Anhui, the Hui Cuisine (徽菜): Egg dumplings, stinky tofu
2. Cantonese, Yue Cuisine (粤菜): seafood, and generally light flavors
3. Fujian, the Min Cuisine (闽菜): renowned for its soups and seafood
4. Hunan, the Xiang Cuisine (湘菜): spicy flavors
5. Jiangsu, the Su Cuisine (苏菜): braised spare ribs
6. Shandong, the Lu Cuisine (鲁菜): Peking Duck
7. Sichuan, Chuan Cuisine (川菜): spicy flavors and use of chili
8. Zhejiang, the Zhe Cuisine (浙菜): fish in vinegar

Lu cuisine is also one of Four Great Traditions as in cooking in China:

1. Lu Cuisine (Shandong Cuisine)
2. Chuan Cuisine (Sichuan Cuisine)
3. Yue Cuisine (Guangdong Cuisine)
4. Su Cuisine (Jiangsu Cuisine)

This one at Yuquan hotel 玉泉 in Jinan is ok.

I met up with dad and his aunt and uncle in Shanghai to escort them to JiNan together, although I’d like to go from Hefei to Jinan which is more direct. But being with them is fun too. The picture shows the train travels at 306 km/190 miles per hour. I also noticed most captains of the train – conductors 列车长 are female. You Go Girls!

The Jinan train station is rather empty. My uncle said, this is the high speed train station and the tickets are more expensive than the normal train – the old station is far more crowded, which I experienced in April 2012, on the overnight ride to Hefei.

The train station offers porter service 小红帽 Xiao Hongmao (little red cap) for

I couldn’t tell where this station is (blurry doesn’t help either) – very unformed, except I’ve a receipt for a bowl of noodle (

68 Luoyuan St, Lixia, Jinan, Shandong, China
济南市泺源大街68号 邮编：250063

So dated, everywhere!

It’s conveniently located on the busy Luoyuan St. Quancheng Square and Baotu Spring and Wanzhu Yuan parks to the west and Inzone 银座 shopping mall to the east. There is also a Korean town cross the street from the hotel.

However, it’s worst than this county hotel. The room is shabby, diggy and uncomfortable. They only offer one key to the room. If you need move separately from your roommate, they’ll send someone, a human to check you ID then open the door for you. Unimaginable. The bathroom, as well as the dark hallway, have red plastic buckets filled with water. The purpose? In case of fire.

The room key holder has only 1 card. Someone must be lingering in the hall way all the time because they came very fast to open the door for you.

Swimming pool’s under renovation. The ping pong club has low ceiling and is dark, uncomfortable as the rooms. I caught a City wide senior Chinese chess tourney.

This 1986 movie was one of my fave. Staring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, directed by Martin Scorsese. Newman won the Best Actor @ Oscar – Academy Award.

A banknote is a banknote. But during this trip, I found myself often mistaken the bills, and the vendors were always very quick to point it out. I’m getting old but maybe others are mistaking the banknotes too – so the vendors are used to it?

• China
• Hong Kon
• Taiwan

If you ask me, I think they all look alike. The US dollar – greenback is still the best looking. The following banknote has a small translucent part on the left, which is different.