Solving Rainy Day Dilemmas with Junk Food

There’s no controlling fickle mother nature and a rainy day can put a real damper (pun intended) on things, particularly when it comes to figuring out how to occupy your precious travel time. Funny how the stuff worth seeing is always on the other side of the hotel room door. For the times when torrential downpours quash any plans for outdoor escapades, it helps to get creative. On a dreary afternoon in Guilin, we dashed over to the closest indoor mall for entertainment. To our delight, we discovered a junk foodie’s dream: a basement level grocery store filled to the brim colorfully packaged snacks and ready-to-eats. A brief analysis of the artificial options sparked the idea for a taste test (genius!), the subject of which would be the all too familiar Oreo cookie. It seems China is way ahead of the US in the flavor game with mango/orange, ice cream, and blueberry/rapsberry to name a few, and we were up for a challenge.

If you’ve tried an Oreo in your life (and I can only assume you have otherwise you are most likely not of this planet and/or are a zombie from birth, and do not know the sweet, crack-like goodness of the American classic) you are well aware of the addictive properties of Oreos. They are amazing in an oh-so-bad-for-you kind of way, and I wish you wouldn’t judge me for eating an entire sleeve in one sitting, thank you. Long story short, here in ‘Merica, we don’t seem to stray from the vanilla cream center, other than the occasional chocolate on chocolate variety, or most recently the addition of Pumpkin to the Kraft cookie’s repertoire. Alas, the Chinese have moved beyond the basics into a new dimension I like to call “Flavors that Taste Like the Real Thing, but not Really,” (SPOILER: strawberry doesn’t taste like actual strawberry, but more akin to strawberry scented chapstick blended with filling).

And now to the fun part. Eating. Though, after 3 bold, new flavors of the sandwiched cookie, I can assure you the test becomes a little less fun and slightly more nauseating. But we rose to the occasion and ate every last one of those puppies, because really… it wasn’t that hard to do. Cookies. Yay!

The clear winner here was the birthday cake flavor, almost identical in taste to the classic we know and love. The takeaway? Maybe there are better things to do when you can’t exploring nature’s scenic wonders. But for us, this suited just fine.