I got my first China (food) experience 1994 in Hong Kong where I visited a friend with some of my favourite travel buddies. I immediately fell in love. Shortly thereafter I went to Beijing and Shanghai. In Beijing I bicycled on a eight-lane boulevard from my hotel to Tiananmen Square. 7 lanes were filled by bicycle riders creating ab ears-splitting noise with their cycle bells, government cars where the only ones to use the car.lane. Even Shanghai then still felt like a greyish backwater. Since then I have travelled to China at least a dozen times, traveled the entire Silk Road from Xian to Xinjang and went overland from Nepal to the momos of Tibet and and the spices of Szechuan,  Many things have changed, for better or worse, but for me, China is still one of the most fascinating places on earth where I once want to live (and eat!).