Lanzhou Lamien

So here I am, in Xiahe. It’s pretty great.

But before I was in Xiahe I was in Lanzhou, which is not as great.

Getting to Shanghai was a bit more of an ordeal than I had originally anticipated. I was told my numerous friends in Hangzhou that they had never had any issue just showing up at the airport bus and hopping on. I managed to nab the very last ticket for the 5:30 bus I needed, and was the first person there to buy tickets in the morning.

LUCKY!

Anyway, the bus ride was pretty uneventful until we got to Shanghai. Due to the Expo or something, we had to sit for about 20 minutes on the bus while at the entrance to the aiport while dudes checked everyone’s documentation. I had a couple hours before my domestic flight and no baggage to check, so I was fine; the Japanese dude getting ready to get home was a bit worried, however.

The flight was uneventful, other than, as always, the Goddess of Travel (due to her eternal hate for me) decided to delay my flight once more. I ended up getting to Lanzhou late and having to spend the night in the city of Lamian.

Since I was there, I decided to have some Lamian at the source. I thought it’d be like eating chocolate at Hershey Park, drinking Coke in their main plant down south or going to wherever Chick-fil-a grows their delicious chicken… and it pretty much was!

This is 羊肉面片 (yangroumianpian).

It is amazing. It’s better than any lamian I’ve ever had, and was more or less the most common thing in Lanzhou. It was also the best thing in Lanzhou, as the place has nothing else going for it but a lot of sand and dust. (I did find the most un-pianzi-y hotel in the history of China though!)