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This Week: Noodles, Commutes, and Breakfast on Campus

This week features reflections on commute-time productivity, a favorite Chinese noodle dish, and a breakdown of what a typical breakfast looks like in the city.

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This Week’s Videos

1. 🏣 How Do You Use Your Commute Time? – Reflecting on whether to use transit time for learning, relaxing, or a mix of both. Watch here

2. 🍜 Chinese Noodles! 鸡丝拌面 – Where to eat in between meal times? The shop that serves shredded chicken over mixed noodles, served dry or with soup. Watch here

3. 🍳 A Chinese Breakfast – A practical Mandarin lesson and look at a traditional morning meal. Watch here

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🏣 How Do You Use Your Commute Time?

This is one reason I created the podcast - to give you something to listen to and to catch up with the YouTube channel without having to commit the eye time!

If you had to walk or ride 30–45 minutes each day, how would you spend that time? Review vocabulary? Listen to a podcast? Or simply unplug and get away from it all?

I used to listen to QingTing FMor Ximalaya for Chinese while on the way to work (when we used to go to the office), but recently it's been Russian with Max through Apple Podcasts. I also listen to a tech show in Chinese, titled 商业就是这样 (shāngyè jiùshì zhèyàng, "This is how business works").

📹 Watch here

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🍜 Chinese Noodles! 鸡丝拌面

Part of campus life is knowing when the feeding times are. Many kiosks are only open during certain hours (breakfast, lunch and dinner), but some stay open throughout the day.

As I've shown in other videos, the main cafeteria building has three floors, but most stalls on the first floor close in between meal times. As a result, gotta go up to the second floor to find something.

In this situation, my go-to stall is a noodle shop that serves up a dish called 鸡丝拌面 (jī sī bàn miàn), which is a dry noodle dish with shredded chicken, some vegetables and sauce on top (particularly sesame sauce).

This is in contrast to other noodle dishes that are served with soup, I pref the dry noodles as they cool quicker and aren't as messy to eat.

Have you tried 鸡丝拌面 or something like it? What's youre go-to Chinese dish?

📹 Watch here

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🍳 A Chinese Breakfast

Another food video, but one that I shot a while back. This is my typical morning order:

“你好，一份包子，两个油条，两个鸡蛋和一杯豆浆无糖。”

"Nǐ hǎo, yī fèn bāozǐ, liǎng gè yóutiáo, liǎng gè jīdàn hé yībēi dòujiāng wú táng."

一份 - yī fèn - one serving

包子 - bāozǐ - steamed dumplings

两个 - liǎng gè - two of something (measure word)

油条 - yóutiáo - deep fried bread

鸡蛋 - jīdàn - eggs (boiled, you have a choice between 煮鸡蛋 (zhǔ jīdàn, boiled egg in plain water) and 茶鸡蛋 (chá jīdàn, eggs boiled in "tea", which is really a mixture of some spices).

和 - hé - "and"

一杯 - yībēi - a glass of (measure word)

豆浆 - dòujiāng - soy milk

无糖 - wú táng - without sugar.

All for about $4 USD. High in calories, but still healthier than McDonalds? Maybe.

📹 Watch here

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Hope you're well! Reach out if you need any help with your studies.

Have a good week,

Steve

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