Views of Bengbu

I just love my city Bengbu! Because it is a smaller city, there’s not really any tourism and so everything is just the good ol’ natural life of China. We’ve taken many pictures of Bengbu, but here are just a few places and experiences that I never want to forget. [word of caution: there’s pictures of dead animals below so I apologize if that grosses you out—but it was just apart of my city]

The bus that takes us everywhere.

Favorite DVD shop.

The street outside our DVD shop filled with seamstresses.

A mosque in our city.

Our favorite place to get supplies (if only we knew about this place sooner).

A man sleeping on the street.

A jade store where I bought a jade bracelet.

Pet stores.

Through this alleyway you will find…

…this, an outlet mall.

Grain and food outlet.

The meet street (aka the grossest street you will ever find). And yes, those are dogs.

Just a man walking with his donkey.

Chickens. They’re everywhere.

Two views of our favorite food street.

Fruit vendors, meat stand, and transportation. Best part of China was having fruit sold on every street.

A food street in the smaller city.

Piles of corn. Randomly one week these piles were everywhere!

Houses by the train tracks that we often walked by.

A city building or school?

Bengbu’s downtown and a sidewalk that is always filled with seniors playing games.

And a beautiful park in the middle of the city.

Cafeteria Food

The school that I live at provides us breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day in the school’s cafeteria. The workers are really nice and I love eating with the kids, but the food here is not very good. To save money I try to eat here as much as possible (although some days I just can’t do it). At first I really didn’t like the food, but eventually I’ve learned to like it more.

The cafeteria.

Breakfast: When we first came to China, we couldn’t handle the breakfast and instead bought our own at the store. But after a while of becoming more accustomed to the food, Whitney and I decided to try it again. Each day they give steamed buns, which you put some type of spicy veggie mixture in, and then either a boiled egg or a sponge cake. We discovered that if you put jam on the steamed buns—it’s actually really good (you can even get a little wild and put peanut butter on it for a PB&J)! And thus breakfast with Whitney became one of my favorite things.

Lunch and dinner: For lunch and dinner they serve about the same things—always rice and four different side dishes to choose from. I wish I could tell you what is on all of these plates, but the fact is most of the time I don’t know—it’s been pretty fun trying to guess what are noodles, meat, tofu, or vegetables. Also, the cafeteria has been known to serve chicken feet and dog—as shown in the picture below in the left corner.

And now I promise to NEVER complain about American food again.