My cousin came to visit during her year-long Asia backpacking trip. It was great to see her for the first time after a six-year separation. She came to the migrant center and to the other NGO's office, and got to slowly acclimate herself to China. Being from my mom's side of the family, she doesn't speak Chinese and I became her food host. While I am a noodles girl myself, I tried to present her with some delicious meals.
Without further ado, here is a selection of some yummy things. None of the credit for these pictures is mine, although I did recently get a camera, so... watch out you blog readers!
1) A (slightly pricey) Chinese meal! We met some Chinese friends at a nice restaraunt (see the glasses and plates?) and had... whatever it is there. 
2)Crossing bridge Yunnan noodles. Famous here, there are many chains available to try a taste. They bring out a bowl of extremely hot, oil-filmed soup and depending on what you ordered, you pile it in and in a minute, you have your meal.
3) Isn't this a great shot? Dumplings... the handsome couple who runs this stand near my office has a child about to test for college. Their business is always excellent during lunch, but they manage to handle the flow very professionally.
4)Korean BBQ meat! I'm only just now realizing just how popular Korean food is popular is here. I myself am starting to enjoy it a lot. This resteraunt was really enjoyable, as you can tell by my ridiculous grin.
5)Crab "hot pot"... mmm mmm! Difficult to eat, but spicy (a must for both of us) and delicious.
6) Us grabbing a simple meal while at the migrant center! Since we don't close till 7:30, 8, sometimes we get food delivered while in the office. This is my co-worker, who is famous for her previous work with many orphanages.
7)And our favorite... roast duck. We came here at least three times during Yen's stay. And it probably wasn't enough.
8) Dim sum. That's all visitors want when they come to China, isn't it? Well I'm sorry to say that in Kunming I've only had it twice - it's a Guangdong province thing! And compared to what we had in this picture, well, it's better in the States.
9) Of course, street meat! One of my favorite parts of this city is being able to grab some munchies throughout the day and most of the night.
10) We went to Xishuanbanna for the Dai New Year. The Chinese Dai minority have many similarities to Thais, and they celebrate their new year with a (now very touristy) event called Watersplashing festival. Unfortunately, we have few pictures of the fun, but we do have a couple of food. Here is a picture of our first meal after crawling off the sleeper bus. My friend has a Dai aunt who lives in Jinghong and was sweet enough to take us to lunch. This picture does Dai food no justice!
11) Later that night we ate some real Dai barbecue. Most of it was wrapped in leaves and was deliciously spicy. 
12)Migan - a sort of rice noodle. Yen pointed out that it looks a little like pho, so like true vietnamese, we dug in.
Chinese food may make you think of stomach problems, and stomach problems may make you think of health, and health may make you think of the recent news involving Chinese pharmaceuticals and exported goods, such as the antifreeze toothpaste in Panama. Well, China's former drug regulator is now facing the drug sentence. I can't say I agree with this punishment, although I do have to say I'm a bit worried about what's been going into my body. I did see a (actually, two - well, actually... six, in the loose sense of the word) doctor at a Chinese hospital last week, and while it was an interesting experience that cost me a whopping 50 cents (my flea medication - oh, by the way, I got fleas on my recent field trip - came to about 5 dollars), I'm not sure I would repeat it, nor am I regretting that I didn't buy the antihistamines prescribed to me (which would have cost about two dollars).
