I was inspired by Julie aka PBFingers, who has her own “Things I’m Loving Friday” series on her blog, to start my own little roundup. (P.S. Julie is one of my favorite bloggers; I highly recommend PBFingers if you are into fitness, food, and fun.) This will just be a roundup of things that I am currently a fan of, or dedications to single things that I like, so much so that I wanted to share them here!

Although I likely won’t have a roundup/dedication available every single Friday, I’ll try to post whenever I have a nice list of things that I really enjoyed recently.

Without further ado, here is today’s roundup, which will be a special edition  that focuses on things I am a fan of from China, to be followed soon by another recap post.

Condiment Caddies

American condiment caddies usually have ketchup and mustard. (Unless you’re at IHOP, in which case, you get lots of syrup.) I’m not knocking ketchup (I love ketchup!) but in China, soy sauce is king. And in lieu of mustard, Chinese chili sauce/oil is super yummy. Also, if you go to a place that specializes in dumplings or noodles, they will have vinegar (usually black vinegar for dumpling shops, sometimes red for noodle shops). Other possible things could be things like brown mustard (none of that bright yellow stuff) and minced garlic. Lots of yummies going on, and I don’t know why exactly but I was such a sucker for it!

FOOD

Okay, let’s be real here, you guys. Chinese food (which is just regular food in China, yes) is SO good. Here are a few of my favorite things that I eat when I go back:

• Peking duck, which tastes even better with an accompanying duck soup and is a delicious nice meal to have. Someone served it to me with pop rocks, and it was weird. Peking duck is a treat and I enjoy it loads. You can have too much, though, so be careful!
• Hot pot is something that I eat here really often, but it’s extra special over there. They do it up proper, yo. There aren’t enough hot pot restaurants in this country. (Yet?)
• 拔丝地瓜 (basidigua) which is a kind of sweet potato/yam that is cooked with sugar and when you pull a piece off, the sugar is still sticking to it so you have to dip it into cold water to harden it and eat it. There is no way to not be messy while you eat this, but it’s pretty fun. I also have not had this in America before.

Fireworks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y60k_H3A6Sk

As the country that invented fireworks, China does not disappoint here. Where I live, setting off fireworks is illegal, so when I see them outside of big shows, they’re little dinky firecrackers. But I set off some big deal big kid fireworks in China and it was SPECTACULAR although it was way loud.

Unabashed Bundling Up

I don’t know why, but I feel like in America, fashion trumps warmth in the winter. And sometimes, I see boys walking around in gym shorts and flip flops when it’s snowing outside, making me wonder what is going on because gym shorts are no more fashionable to sweatpants. Personally, I always wear at least one pair of leggings/thermals in the winter under my pants because I just cannot stand being really cold. In China, I will never see someone in shorts in the winter, and I’m glad. In fact, when I decided I was going to wear 6 layers to Harbin (and 5 layers of pants), I was encouraged and given down-lined coat to boot. Walking around the streets were guys AND girls with maybe-too-cute mouth covers to keep their faces warm. These are my kind of people.

Unabashed Love for SPF

Again, I get ridiculed quite a bit here for being so very into sun protection, but China is the nation where I can always count on getting a sunbrella in the summer and where all the daytime skincare products have SPF in them. When I cover up any and all exposed skin, I only had one person ask me “Are you trying to avoid getting too much sun exposure?” and when I said yes, that was that. Accepted. No ridicule. Yes thank you very much.

Asian Street Style

You know, even though it’s sometimes way over-the-top or way cutesy for my tastes, I appreciate that I could wear my panda hat around without anyone looking twice, mostly because they had little foxes on their mary janes, or giant lips on their mouth covers, or a badger hoodie, or their own panda hat. So that was kind of nice, despite how overbearing it seemed on particularly cranky days. Also, Asian girls seem to be very into the skater skirt/dress & tights combo, and I dig it. (I don’t like baring my legs, personally, so I’m always down for tights.)

WeChat

This app is available to everyone in the App Store and the Google Play Store, and I like it a lot. My favorite feature is the small voice messages that you can leave in your chats. I like this feature because a) I can hear someone’s voice and b) I really hate typing on my phone. Really really. Talking comes so much more easily to me, you don’t even have to look at the screen to do it. WeChat is HUGE in China. Most companies and TV shows have their own WeChat IDs that you can interact with and it’s one of the online media giants in China along with Weibo and Baidu. (So instead of companies having Facebooks and Twitters and Instagrams and etc. etc., they all have a Weibo and a WeChat.) I wish more people here would use it so that I could type less on my phone and have more friends to talk to with it!

What have you been a fan of lately?
Do you bundle up a LOT in the winter or bundle the bare minimum?
Are there any apps that you wish more people used with you?