I got to sleep in a bit later than usual this morning. The plane for our return trip to Shanghai didn't leave until after 3:00 PM, so we had plenty of time. I did manage to make it down to the breakfast buffet before they closed at 9:30. Although they served both Western and Chinese food, I rarely eat any Western food while in China, especially at breakfast.
Chinese restaurants in the US aren't usually open for breakfast, so having a large selection of Chinese breakfast items to choose from is a real treat. I can eat bacon and eggs anywhere, but where else can I get fish congee (rice porridge) with Sichuan-style pickled mustard tubers. Other common breakfast items include various steamed buns filled with meat or vegetables, hot soymilk, and fried bread sticks called you tiao that are sort of like a very lightly sweetened donut. Even KFC, which is the most popular fast food restaurant in China, serves you tiao.
Our plane didn't leave for several hours, but we had to check out of our room at noon. Since our guide wasn't going to pick us up until 1:00, we waited in the hotel's coffee shop. I opted for a big bottle of the local beer rather than coffee. Luoyang Gong, which means "Luoyang Palace" is a reasonably good Chinese-style Pilsner. It compares favorably with the more popular Tsingtao (pronounced Ching Dow), but is less hoppy. However, Luoyang Gong has a slightly higher alcohol content, so it has that going for it.
Although modern brewing techniques were introduced to China by the Germans, the Chinese use far less hops. This produces a beer that is more malty than even American Lagers, but most breweries do a fairly good job keeping their beer from getting too sweet. Many Chinese people actually prefer their beer a bit sweeter than Westerners, and the ones that don't, generally drink European brands. Chinese brewers also use more rice adjunct than even American macro breweries, but usually not so much that it is distracting.
Many people (especially Europeans) love to hate on the use of rice as an adjunct, but American breweries have found that most of their customers actually prefer the clean and crisp taste it produces. Breweries also like to use rice because it reduces production costs compared to using barley or even corn. For these reasons, Anheuser-Busch is the largest buyer of US-grown rice in North America. Rice also helps reduce cloudiness, and Chinese beers are usually crystal clear.
We arrived at the airport about an hour and a half before our flight. Luoyang's airport terminal is not very big. You can easily see from one end to the other, and there are only three gates. Oddly enough, Luoyang's airport is the 4th busiest airport in China, but that is only because the Civil Aviation Flight University of China has their exercising terminal located there.
A local guide picked us up at the Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai for the transfer to our hotel. So far, we had a different guide for each of our airport transfers, but our latest guide said she would be our guide for the remainder of our trip. We were not going to use a guide while attending the World Expo, but we were going to spend two days with her visiting various other sites in Shanghai.
On the way to the hotel, we mostly talked about the World Expo. We told her what we had seen so far, and she recommended that we return to Zone D to visit the Oil Pavilion. We skipped the Oil Pavilion before because we were short on time. Our guide said it was definitely worth visiting, and that the pavilion's 4-D movie was made by the same production team that did Avatar. I had made reservations online for the GM-SAIC (General Motors - Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) Pavilion tomorrow afternoon. It is located in Zone E, which is right next to Zone D, so we decided to take our guide's advice and check out the Oil Pavilion the next morning.
We checked into the Holiday Inn Shanghai Downtown for a third time. The staff recognized us and welcomed us back. Without exception, the staff at this hotel did an outstanding job.
It was starting to get late, so we once again went to Yue Garden for dinner. We had Beef with Mushrooms, Yangzhou Fried Rice, Chopped Greens with Dried Bean Curd, and Braised Bullfrog. I have eaten frog legs on many occasions, but this was my first experience eating the rest of the frog. It was served in a big clay pot, and like many meats in China, it was not deboned before being chopped up. I didn't see anything resembling a head, but it appeared that they just chopped up the entire bullfrog and put it in the pot, bones and all. So whenever in China, one has to be careful when eating meat, even in soups. The bullfrog was excellent. A lot of people say that frog tastes like chicken, but I think it tastes like frog. I guess chicken would be the closest "normal" meat, but it really has its own unique taste. The other dishes were also excellent.
Day 10 (Part 1): The Oil Pavilion, Pavilion of Footprint, and cars of the future