A Visit to the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) River & Xiang Shan Mountain

Over the weekend of September the 10th, we had  3 day holiday as the Chinese celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival (<--Click That) culminating with the viewing of the moon on the night of September 12th. As 3 of my students and I prepared for the day, waiting at the bus stop, I found it touching that they knew the significance of this day (9/11). That being said, we headed off on our journey to explore a part of the city none of us had yet been to, the Chang Jiang (westerners know it as the Yangtze river) river port, and Xiang Shan Mountain.  We started about 10:30 a.m. and returned home about 5:30 p.m. A long, but good day-a very good day. Here is a link to some of the pictures of our day: 

A Visit to the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) River and Xiang Shan Mountain

I will tell you one thing, and then kind of let the pictures tell the rest of the story. We had one of my favorite food items Xiao Long Bao (<--Click That), usually called a soup dumpling, but actually a bit different than a dumpling in form. Xiao Long Bao is a delicious small steamed, ok, I will call it a dumpling, with a small pork meat ball in the middle, but what really sets it apart is the sweet tasting broth inside. Words don't, and can't really do it justice-you just have to try one. Take Xiao Long Bao and google it and you will find many who try to describe it and tell you how to eat it. I will tell you this, to experience it at its best, you should nibble a little of the the dumpling away, and then for lack of better word, suck the soup out, and then eat the rest. You can put the whole thing in your mouth, but if the soup is hot, as it usually is, you will be spitting the whole thing back out of your mouth. Opening it up like you see in the picture helps the soup cool a bit. 

Xiao Long Bao