Leaving on a Jet Plane

The experience in China has been truly fascinating.  I have had the opportunity to see several cities and sights, as well as experience the local cuisine.  Also, I have met many interesting people from all over the world.  One of those included my coworker Bruce (Yi) Di.  He has shown me the finer points of Shanghai and the surrounding area.  With my time here coming to a close, Bruce booked a weekend at a Chinese resort in a neighboring city of Hangzhou.  Hangzhou is the largest of the “water towns” that surround Shanghai. 

Bruce swung by my apartment at 8am on Saturday morning for the weekend extravaganza.  I loaded into a minivan with far too many people and luggage, and headed out.  90 minutes later, we arrived at the resort.  Honestly, I had rather low expectations; however the resort was absolutely incredible.  It occupied several hundred acres and contained an Olympic-sized pool, spa, squash courts, table tennis, karaoke, and a bowling alley.  I took advantage of some of these activities, and learned to never challenge a native Chinese fellow to a game of table tennis…whoa…

Below are some photos of the resort.

Surrounding the hotel were tea fields similar to this one.

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The weekend concluded with a group photo, which was very nice.  All of the individuals there had significant-others (wives, fiancees, etc.) accompany them.  I would have been happy to bring my lovely wife, however she had departed China several days before.  Now…I know what you are all thinking and NO, the woman in front of me in the picture below was not my date.   Actually she is the mother of the young lady on the far left.  You see, the couple on the left is engaged, and the mother of the bride-to-be came along to insure the preservation of her daughter’s virtue until the wedding day.  She was a very nice woman, however she did not speak English which significantly limited our conversations.

Throughout this weekend, our Chinese hosts wielded control of the menus.  Though I have tried to refrain from any additional posts on the food, I figure it is okay because this is likely my final post.  So, below you will see a high-level overview of the cuisine for the weekend.  Please note that I ate all but the final one…for reasons you shall see.

Above we have some poultry.  What I did not realize was that it was actually duck stomach.  Though it was not totally repulsive, you will not be seeing this on the Seiler summer barbecue menu.

Turtle…if you couldn’t guess from the piece on top.  I am not sure how they prepared it, however it seemed as though they dropped the thing in a blender with some soy sauce, heated and served.  Again, not something I would recommend.

This one troubled me a bit.  It was a small (some would say “baby”) bird of some sort.   Believe it or not, after I took the photo Bruce (mentioned above) grabbed the head with his chopsticks and ate it.  It sounded like he was eating a handful of Doritos.  My appetite was limited following that…

The fish was great, though it is a bit unnerving having to look your food in the eye as you eat it.

Snake of unknown origin.  Fortunately the chef decided to have pity on the western guests and bathed it in batter and deep fried it.  All in all, not bad.

Soup.  You see, this is the very reason why I don’t clean my plate – because I can never be sure of what is at the bottom.  As the soup bowl came around to me, needless to say I was a bit shocked to find the duck floating at the bottom.  Fortunately it had it’s eyes closed…eesh.

Cow tongue…tastes similar to cat tongue…

Now comes the item that you’ve been waiting for.  Since my arrival in China, I have tried to be open minded and try – at least try – everything that was put in front of me.  This has exposed me to dishes ranging from jellyfish to pig skin, however nothing could quite prepare me for the entree below.

Pig brain…I’m still speechless.

See you all soon!