I've shared similar snacks twice¹ before². This is the third in this family.
This is essentially the first of the snacks (linked below) made with stuffing finger peppers with a sesame-based paste and crisp-frying them to delightfully crunchy perfection. It's the less-spicy variety (unlike the second linked snack) but still plenty hot. And crisp-fried alongside them are two legumes: peanuts and broad beans. Being fried, seemingly, in the same oil, both have a lot of the imparted flavour of chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, and other spices (probably black pepper in there as well at least) inundating them.
These are a bit oilier than the other pair of snacks, however. Have tissues handy while eating them.
Hollowed and carved pear wood sachet for storing little scent pills. This one is shaped rather like a so-called "ginger jar". The purchase came with a trial set of five osmanthus-scented pills.
This is intended to be used as a phone charm, or the like: adding a bit of subtle¹ scent to your immediate environment.
I got it on a whim. I kinda like it. I may get a few more. (They come in a lot of shapes and the pills come in a lot of scents.)
¹ "Subtle" if you don't put it right next to your nostrils. Doing that is ... not advised.
Another day, another calabash charm. This one, however, comes with a twist.
It's very similar to the brass one I last posted¹, but this time it's better for my intended purpose. Because this one is intended to be an emergency supply for some important components I bought.
Daoism and Chinese folk religion are intertwined in very ornate ways to the point it's hard to tease them apart. A case in point is the interaction with the calabash gourd and cinnabar.
The calabash gourd has many meanings in Chinese cultures. The oldest meanings are likely related to fertility and connubial bliss (because the many seeds within it suggested many children). Later it adopted the meaning also of fortune and wealth because of its similarity in sound to those terms. Finally it took on the meaning of health because doctors would transport their medicines inside of them.
And this is where the Daoist part enters the picture. Daoism, in its religious form, is obsessed with making "immortality pills" (recall that pills were frequently stored in the calabash), so calabashes became common symbols of Daoism.
The two things most commonly associated with these pills are quicksilver (mercury) and cinnabar (a mercury compound, but this wasn't known at the time; the colour of cinnabar was always a favoured colour in Chinese culture, up to today). Indeed one of the ways these pills were to be made was to put cinnabar in one part of a calabash and quicksilver in the other and have them "marry" (perpetuating the fertility symbolism).
Which leads us to the subjects of today's little photo-essay: a brass calabash-shaped charm with a surprising interior, and an actual calabash used as a charm ... with a surprising interior as well.
As usual the alt text has the explanations and Mastodon users will have to click through to the Pixelfed post to get all of them.
So why did I get these? I wanted to see if I can use them for those tiny dice I posted a while back¹. Unfortunately the hole in the real calabash was too small to fit all the dice, and the brass one was too tight a fit to be practical.
It's time for some oddball snack foods again. One thing I'm always impressed by here is the quality of the packaging. Even the western brands have had to adapt to local styles to sell.
Talking of "stupid things that I have on my desk", this is the only thing that vies with "Captain Cash and Rocket Lad"¹ for favourite thing on my desk.
I make no bones about really not caring for japanimation. (This is a learned distaste, caused by its icky community. Once I saw certain things held up as positive I couldn't unsee them and it tarnished the whole medium as a result.) And of all the japanimation things, I think I loathe Pokemon the most. Not because it's especially egregious. (I mean it's at least not tentacle porn?) Because it's omnipresent. You can't go anywhere without having them polluting your eyes.
Thankfully I have an SO who agrees.
So when I stumbled over this figurine of the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise merged with Pikachu from Pokemon, I instantly thought of SO and bought it to surprise him with it.
Only...
It was REALLY cute and funny. So I decided it was mine. Now it sits on my desk next to "Captain Cash and Rocket Lad" and I really can't decide which I prefer.
A little bit of a blast from my past. There was a time when the Chinese admired Donald Trump (to the point that a car company named themselves after him!¹). Then he went more openly insane to the point that even through cultural lenses it was obvious, started spouting a whole bunch of anti-China rhetoric, and generally lost all favour here.
That's when all kinds of interesting things showed up. Trump toilet paper, for example.²
And, given his very public love affair with the lunatic in Pyongyang, these figures who I call "Cashman and Rocket Lad". Which I naturally bought. (They still feature prominently on my desk's shelf at home.)
The pill-box keychain filled with pill-sized dice is going to be on my person all the time. And for "formal occasions" (like gaming conventions) the pendant filled with them will be around my neck and ready for action.
And at last the reason for the meal is made manifest. THIS is what I live for, foodwise. And I only ever eat from the red half. (The white half is for people who are weak at spice.)
Interesting side note.
In Chongqing proper, the half/half broth like this costs about the same at a decent restaurant: about US$ 6-7. But if you get just the red broth in a pan the same size it's only $1. If you can't tolerate spice, you'll pay for it in Chongqing! 🤣
At any rate, I didn't show all items because I can only have ten pics in a post, and I'm too lazy to do a fifth post. Missing from this list are some thinly-sliced beef to go with the mutton, some potato slices, and some spinach. All were equally well-presented.
As much as I love hot pot (it has rapidly become comfort food for me), there are other dishes to eat as well. Here are the dishes that fall into the "other" category.
This place offers a huge condiment bar for making custom dipping sauces. Most places will have a few of these ingredients in small volumes at the table, but here they give you a very large number of them and let you make your own creations. I have a very specific mix I make these days, shown in the last two pictures of this sequence.
I am fortunate enough to live within walking distance of my favourite #restaurant in the world.
This is no exaggeration. This is literally my favourite place to eat, and I've been to a lot of restaurants in a lot of cities in a lot of countries.
Yesterday, out of the blue, SO invited me out to lunch at my favourite place, so I decided I'd show the place in a bit more detail than I have in the past.
This is the first post of four planned, showing the facilities of the place. Further posts will show off the condiment bar, the side dishes, and finally the main event itself.
The topic of solo RP comes up quite often in my Mastodon feed, and when it does it's always in the context of "which (digital) tools do you use to facilitate your solo play?"
I hate computers. I hate them with the kind of passion people usually reserve for war criminals. (Of course the fact I consider most software to be a literal crime against humanity helps stoke that fury.) I like to keep computers out of my entertainment. Thus it is that my solo RP set is almost purely analogue.
When I solo RP this is my kit. A bamboo box. Within it the dice I need for the game being played, a (fountain) pen, a(n eternal) pencil and eraser. A fancy-schmancy notebook (that is Frankensteined together from various pieces), some little illustrations that I use for inspiration (taped/glued into the notebook when they're used), and a selection of fancy bookmarks.
I journal in a style I've used since middle school that some software kiddie reinvented and gave the name "Bullet Journal" to because that crowd has no sense of history. (Kind of like the "story game" crowd, in that regard.) And currently, in this C&S game I'm soloing (as you can see from the printed Solitude rules set), the only digital element is that the rules for the game are in my phone because I can't afford to buy the rules and have them shipped to China.
This changes this summer, however, as I have guests coming from Canada and I've asked them to pick up the rules. And that box is likely just the right size to hold those as well! Then my solo RP will be analogue only!
It's been an age and a half since I've bought enamel pins, but when I saw these I had to have them. Both colours each of both forms. (Yes, the indicator slides.)
Woe betide the person who talks to me if the heart/lightning bolt is at the far left red 😠 position!