I want to travel the world with my lovely friends and lover. Go to every interesting place and hear something new and have something different to eat, that is my most relaxing journey. Last weekend, I was landed in Chaozhou — a city which is located in the east of Guangdong Province and has history of more than thousand years.
It is famous for its history. There are more than 100 old residential houses in the center of the city and between them are the narrow ancient alleys. These preserve houses are the most typical buildings in the Ming and Qing Dynasties in this area.
Old houses
On the old central street — Taiping Street, 24 Paifang (a building like an arch) stand high. Each Paifang has its glorious history: Some of them have been built for praising the fame, some for praising loyalty and filial piety and some for commending the people who had very good performance in the imperial examinations. The text engraved on the Paifang is like a short biography of a character. You will learn some stories of Chaozhou culture by reading them. These Paifang make this old street look solemn, and the shops on both sides of the street make here prosperous for hundreds of years.
Paifang on the Taiping Street
The city is also famous for porcelain. The pure and delicate characteristics of the Chaozhou Ceramics plus the variety of the shapes and patterns, made them special and popular. They would always be loved and transported already in Song Dynasty overseas. And nowadays the fine art will be used in some important occasions the fine art.
Ceramics Set for G20 Summit
But for the foodies like me, Chaozhou is famous for its beef hotpot. “No living cow can go out of Chaozhou” is a joke that expresses the citizin’s love for beef. Fresh beef enters the market every morning. Its freshness is the key to determining the quality of Chaozhou beef hotpot. Here, beef doesn’t only have one name. People call different names for different parts of the beef. “Diàolóngbàn”, “Bórén”, “Wǔhuāzhǐ”, “Chírén” etc. The meat needs to be cut very thin manually, otherwise it will affect the taste. The soup base of the hotpot is mostly beef bone broth, which is more conducive to taste the original taste of beef. Because only about 30% of beef can be eaten in hotpot, a large part will be made into beef balls, which is not so restricted as hotpot beef.
Beef Hotpot
After hotpot meal, we went to the Hanjiang River for helping digestion. The Guangji Bridge spans the Hanjiang River, which has tremendously improved the traffic efficiency. People who live on both sides of the river can easily cross the river and they used to buy some essential necessities like salt, oil on the bridge, which led to economic circulation. It is the earliest open and close bridge in the world. This 500 meter long bridge can be separated and connected again in the middle according to the requirements, then ships could pass the bridge.
Guangji Bridge across the Hanjiang River
When we got tired of walking, we found a tea house in one of the alleys. A quiet backyard and a simple hut made us feel peaceful. We cooked our tea in a small neat room and relived our journey from here.
In a tea house
