Hangzhou is my favorite city in China, together with Chengdu and Ningbo, particularly because they have excellent food. In our four gourmet tour destinations Hangzhou and Chengdu are listed.

Now I am happy to see that they are in top 3  as "the happiest cities in China" according to a recent survey.

"What is China’s best and most favoured city to live in? Where do people feel at home, with good facilities and enough things to do, at a reasonable price level? It is not Beijing, nor Shanghai, Shenzhen or one of the other large metropolises in China. According to a recent survey, the best city to live a happy life with your family is Hangzhou, the capital city of Southeast China's Zhejiang Province."

http://www.flyingblueclubchina.com/inspire/whats-hot/the-happiest-cities-of-china

Today is the fifteenth day of Chinese lunar calendar - a special festival day called Yuan-xiao Jie (Lantern Festival). It marks the last day of Spring Festival. There are various versions about the origin of the festival. If you want to know more, the website http://www.lantern-festival.com can tell you everything.

In Chinese tradition, people celebrate the day by lighting lanterns; playing guessing games such as answering conundrums, solving puzzles; and eating Yuan-xiao (also called Tang-yuan), referred to in English as glutinous rice ball because its main ingredient is flour made from “glutinous” or “sticky” rice. The fillings can vary. The very traditional one is stuffed with sweet black sesame paste.

When I was small, my mother used to make Yuan-xiao herself. She always made balls with several different fillings. There were balls with minced pork meat, or sweet peanut paste, or black and white sesame paste, or vegetables. What I like most was ones without filling.

This morning I made a special breakfast for the day: Yuan-xiao in egg and sweet fermented rice wine soup seasoned with dehydrated osmanthus flowers. A nostalgia taste!

Saturday, 2nd February of this year, marks the beginning of spring - the first phase of the 24 solar terms of China, which was invented by ancient Chinese. The 24 solar terms was based on the movement of the sun. Each phase lasts approximately 15 days. They reflect the changes of weather, climate and natural phenomena. In long Chinese history, they played a vital role in agricultural production, annual schedule and people's daily life, including clothing, food, housing and transportation etc.. 

The start of spring indicates that a new circle of the four seasons begins and the earth comes to life after a long winter's rest and preservation. There is an old Chinese saying: the most important time of a day is morning, the most crucial season of a year is spring (一日之计在于晨，一年之计在于春). Spring is the time of sowing and seeding. For an agricultural country, a good spring is a vital factor for the result of harvest.

On the starting day of spring, it's a tradition to eat Spring Pancake in northern China, which is known as "biting spring". People eat spring pancakes together with various stir-fried vegetables, omelette, and pork meat cooked with soy sauce. The typical way is using the pancake to wrap the cooked stuffs. There are free choices of ingredients, but for real traditional version, three vegetables cannot be missing: Chinese chives, bean sprouts, and Chinese spinach.