You all have made some great guesses and I have loved getting your notes and comments. Some of you came really close to the right answers but no one was spot on. So I guess we will have to call it a big tie, which of course means you all are invited to Shanghai!! Just let me know when you are coming so I can have enough food on hand ::) In all seriousness, If you ever wanted to see China now is your chance – all you have to do is buy the ticket and come here and you get free room and board. You really can’t beat that deal. Plus you can have use of my driver to take you to see the sights. I hope you take me up on my offer.
Ok, so here are the answers you have all been waiting for!
1. This is actually a chicken egg. There is a funny story behind why it looks this way – Our refrigerator here is a side by side which we have never had before, in fact our ‘fridge at home in the USA has ‘french doors’ on top. So one of the kids (neither one will confess to the crime) put the eggs in the freezer! The next day I found them and they hadn’t cracked. So I left them in the fridge for another day to ‘thaw’ and then we cracked them open and cooked them, and this is what happened!! The eggs tasted totally normal but looked really strange 🙂
2. S2 is holding a very traditional Chinese treat you get on the street. They are very small apples that have a sweet/tart taste sort of like jolly ranchers. They are put on the stick (you get about 6 apples to a stick) and the whole thing is dipped in candy apple sugar. They are delicious!
3. These are dried ‘tree mushrooms’ they sort of look like little trees from a fairy garden. I thought they looked like minnows all trying to swim upstream 🙂
4. Haw, it turns out, is made from the red berries of the hawthorn tree. I haven’t tried it yet but now that I know what it is I think I will give it a try. I think it will be something like a fruit roll up. I’ll let you know!
I want to give a special shout out to all the kids in Mrs. Dillon’s class ! You all gave fabulous guesses. What is your favorite kind of Chinese food? Do you know what part of the country it comes from? Do you know any Chinese words? If so tell me what they are. So far I have learned to say ‘hello’ which is Ni hao (said knee how) and ‘how are you?’ which is said ‘kneen how ma?’ What would you want to say if you came to China?
Ni hao Shanghai! 
The class loved hearing the answers to the challenge. They were especially surprised to hear the egg story because they were convinced that the egg came from a giant bird. They are also very curious about the apple treat!
I’ll get their favorite Chinese foods tomorrow.
This contest is great idea, but for those of us who can read Chinese, the lbels are a dead giveaway! For those of us who read English, the labels are remarkably similar: a/k/a=also known as.
Keep blogging !
Love,
Dad
Curse that perambulating egg. Hard boil it, NOW! Quickly, before its existence begins to further anger me.
I would like to know “Where’s the bathroom!”
Thanks for the answers! Can’t wait for the next round.
April
Tory…went to that conference you had told me about. Was absolutely uplifting! I took a bunch of notes. Anxious to share with you. Is there a way I can send a note? I think I might be able to do this via Linked In.