Cousins' Day Out

As the youngest of the cousins on my mom's side,

and by a good six years at least,

I suffered through my fair share of good-natured torture getting set straight,

when I was a little girl.

But even then, and especially now,

I have certainly reaped in the benefits.

Most of my cousins are only children in their families,

and so when I come to visit China,

I get so spoiled, I'm practically a rotten egg.

Although two of them have their own kids now, one's in Shanghai, one's in the US,

and one's busy with medical school and her residency,

they all find the time to come save me from my boredom and take me out to

do all sorts of fun things - and I swear they probably work out a Caroline schedule

between the few of them, and mathematically space out individual fun days with them,

so that I'm never at risk of a major hissy fit for long. (Because, cough, why would that happen?)

Of course the kiddy kid kid comes along all the time - she's our family mascot.

Last week, my smarty of a future doctor cousin took us out for some

truly outrageous Korean BBQ. We overindulged with fatty beef and fatty pork

(for fatty humans, it's only fitting), mushrooms, seafood soup, seaweed soup,

vegetable vermicelli, seafood pancake, various kimchis, the most bomb sauces ever,

and a few leaves to make us feel like our arteries wouldn't completely clog.

And as if that wasn't enough to make me want to lay in a fetal position 

until dinner for a few days, my cousin really extended her lunch break,

and took us out for my very, very, very favorite treat in all of China (I was

about to say the world, but then I remembered french fries, and cupcakes,

and BiRite, and ten million other things):

Mango ice!

We slurped these up at Guoran HK, but the queen of mango ice is found

at Hui Lau Shan - they're mostly in Hong Kong, but I heard from a little birdy

(Yelp) that there is a sister store in San Francisco. Come September,

I'll be all over that bugger. Anyway, mango ice is a delicious combination

of shaved ice, mangoes, mango ice cream, mango syrup, tapioca balls

of various sizes and textures, and sometimes other special additions such

as lychee shavings, coconut milk, various jellies, or anything to your liking really!

I'm off to do a crunch or maybe three if I'm feeling crazy.

Happy Monday!

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