Duck Tongue in Chongqing

You ate WHAT??? Yes, indeed... I ate duck tongue the other night. A lot of you might think that's funny; you might even quack up at the thought. But it wasn't that bad, really. Not a whole lot of flavor, and incredibly... how to describe it?... gnarly. Not crunchy, but like it was full of gnarls. My guess is that it was duck tongue cartilage that was giving it that effect. So enjoy the picture to the right, of me about to eat duck tongue.

Now... I just feel bad about all those Chinese ducks waddling around out there that can no longer talk! But then again, perhaps the rest of the ducks aren't walking around, anyway. Perhaps they're Peking duck on somebody else's plate!

But anyway, this was down in Chongqing, China. Most Chinese cities are in provinces (states), but from what I understand, Chongqing is one of three cities that is NOT in a province, but is it's own kinda-sorta-state, and falls under the control of the Chinese central government. Since most big cities in China in the eastern part of the country, the government is trying to build up other cities, and this southern city is one of them. And it's just a tiny little town of over 31 million people. Gees... that's not much smaller than all of California! It was raining the entire time I was there, and they tell me that it's pretty much always rainy or foggy there. The topography was really different than the other parts of China that I've seen; this was quite hilly.

Anyway... I had business meetings there, and after a business dinner Thursday night, Areil (our Chinese distributor) took me to this really cool old traditional-looking building that was full of shops, restaurants, etc. Most of them were closed because we got there late, but check out the photo below. I like the contrasting modern building in the background, and the lights on both. I've got a whole bunch more photos, too, but for some reason cannot upload them to my standard photo sites; please check back later.