So this is Christmas in LiShui, not as seasonal as other places but just as memorable..

I woke up thinking it’d be just a regular day off work since there wasn’t any big events for expats to attend. I mopped about my home, did some laundry, contemplated cleaning which was a really lame idea for the day that it is. I sent my Filipina neighbour a message asking if she wanted to go for pizza in the afternoon and she said she had been invited for lunch with a lady she met recently and I could tag along. Phew, no need to clean the home to today, it can wait, I got something interesting to do.

Let’s Start With Lunch

Hot Pot, it’s a Chinese traditional, classic meal. Great on a cold day and it’s oddly popular all year round. Every region in China has their own style, seemingly suitable to their unique climate. The further south you go the more spicy it gets but not all hot pots are about how hot you can handle. This is why I love LiShui hot pot. Mushrooms are a specialty here so it’s fitting to have the best mushroom soup style hot pot options. We had two flavours, mushroom and tomatoe. At first I thought it looked super spicy, but as always I try everything, happy to have learned it was tomatoe and not killer death hotness.

(local fresh water fish)

The LiShui Mansion

My host for lunch offered to give us a tour of her company’s mansion reserved only for the most elite of her clients when they are in town. After she treated us to lunch she spoiled us to seeing what’s really going down here. She said it would be scary to stay there alone since it was so big but after the tour I beg to differ.

I will let the photos speak for me.