Who Knew that the endangered Red Panda I saw in China would be Google's widget for the day . They are giving it the high five as the Red Panda of the month of October..

Alas my photo is not as good as theirs.

Food and Wine - Baijiu, potato pancake and Tibetan Hot Pot or I could say Pfumfli, rosti and fondu Chinoise

...so what came first? The Chinese version or the Swiss version?


It was in Chengdu when my host asked me if I would like some Chinese wine; yes came my reply eager to try all aspects of their food and wine. I was led by the hand  to see the different glass jars with their potions of herbs and weird looking additives till the last one when I could definitely distinguish a dead snake in the clear liquid. With 60-80% alcoholic volume I learnt this was the Chinese national drink called Baijiu and that Chinese women don't drink it.
This was moonshine with subtle flavor changes till one reached the most refined  when it slipped down so smoothly it reminded me of the finest Swiss eau-de-vie.
Then in the middle of Yunnan province came my next  cultural culinary surprise, a potato pancake  which was exactly the same as the best Swiss rosti and totally delicious.


More surprises were to come  up in Shangri-la where we were served a Tibetan hot pot.  The two  differences to the fondu Chinoise  that I loved so much during the years we lived in Switzerland was that the Chinese dunk spam into the pot and don't turn the stock into soup to be drunk at the end of the meal. 

 
  

PANDAS.

As a child,  growing up in Zimbabwe, where I had the BIG FIVE at my doorstep whenever I wanted, I yearned to see two types of bears, the koala and the panda. Like any child I had my stuffed versions but as bucket lists became de rigeur, the tiger, koala and panda featured high on my list.
I had achieved fabulous sightings of  both tiger and the koala, the former you can see on this blog, and  the latter I saw several times long before blogging became a household word.
For me, this year has been The Year of the Panda - I wonder why the panda doesn't feature in the Chinese Zodiac? - If anyone out there knows why I'd love to hear from you. It seems the dear panda would be such a natural and certainly far more appealing than the snake or the rat.