I have been eating well, and therefore have been getting braver and braver in terms of what I order (not stupid brave....but choosing from the pictures if the restaurant has them and they look good).
Anyway, I had been doing quite well with my "choices", and most of my meals have been terrific. A particular favorite of mine has been these little "hot pots". These are thick ceramic or metal bowls that they put on a propane stove and heat up until the broth is boiling. They then throw in various vegetables, noodles, rice, chicken, tofu etc.
I love these little dishes as they are really tasty! Some have been spicy, but that is fine because I generally like spicy foods, and often the hotter the better!
However, at lunch today my braveness totally backfired and I certainly met my match in terms of a spicy dish. I tried a dish (pictured attached - the blurriness in the photo is just steam) that turned out to be very "la"...which means spicy in Chinese....and in this particular case, when I say "la".....I mean capital fricken "LA"! Plus, to make the whole situation worse, it was "sneaky" spicy.
The first bit of the soup and noodles seemed a little spicy, but not "crazy hot". It was not until I had worked my way through maybe the first third of the bowl that I began to realized just how spicy this one really was.
Anyway by the time I had eaten maybe 6 more bites, it began to dawn on me that I was in serious trouble.
I had now eaten about 1/2 the bowl, and my mouth was on absolute fire. I was also starting to sweat profusely and my nose was running like a faucet (and did for almost 2 straight hours!!!!!!). Somewhere around this part of the meal I think my bladder might have also gone, but I am not sure, because my soaking wet shirt/pants could also have been from the combination of sweat pouring off my body or the 3 bottles of water I had poured down my throat trying to put out the fire.
It was quite a scene, and the restaurant lady thought it was really funny. I was trying not to totally embarrass myself...but am not sure I was successful (and in retrospect, there is no doubt I caused a bit of a "scene"....but in fairness to me, it was more of a survival issue at that point)
The really bad news is that I know this bad boy is working it's way through my system. To date, I have been perfect at timing my "bathroom breaks" to make sure they happen when I am in my apartment. However this little dish has given me some concern regarding my perfect record...and one of the things that I do not want to try/experience is the Chinese squat toilet with a serving of spicy food issues on the side!
On the positive side, I do have to say that this dish was only 6rmb (85 cents), and therefore excellent value!....of course the coke I had with lunch plus the 3 bottles of water made the meal a bit more expensive.....all the way up to 12RMB!....but even fully admitting to the excellent value, I probably won't order this one again!?!?
P.S. the restaurant is called the 888 (in China 8 is considered a lucky number, and means you are destined to collect money or wealth)
Dinner
In previous postings I had indicated that on Thursday I was going with David (Chinese teacher) and his wife for Roast Peking Duck. I was pumped about this, because this is another one of my "must do's" while in China.
Well, this meal also turned out a little differently than planned!
I was waiting in my apartment for David to come get me (wearing my crappy grey Dalhousie T-shirt, 2 day old shorts and my sandals) when David knocked on the door and introduced me to Mr. Li, the Head of Human Resources for E&A College.
He said that Mr. Li's daughter is going to MHC next year and might end up taking a class from me...and that he and his wife wanted to treat me to supper. I said sure, that this sounded great....and then quickly ran into the other room and changed into proper pants and put on my (only) nice golf sweater.
In the elevator on the way down, they informed me that we had to stop at the executive offices and get the President of the College, the Head of the Business Department for Hebei Normal University and David's boss at E&A College......who all wanted to come along! (at this point, there were probably alarm bells and sirens going off in the P.R. department at Medicine Hat College...because I'm fairly certain that they would/should not want ME to be any part of trying to further develop the MHC/E&A College Chinese-English relationship......especially when there was going to be alcohol involved!
Anyway, too late now, and off we headed (in a brand new Audi sedan - nice!) to the restaurant!
I have now been to several fancy restaurants here in China, and so kind of have an idea as to what to expect...but this one put the other's to shame. It was called Qin "something", and was decorated in the style of the Qincool
Part of this "business dinner tradition" is to drink (lots of) a white liquid called Baoji. Baoji, can be roughly be translated as white wine....but it isn't! It is more like a white alcohol liqueur. I have to say it is actually pretty good, and I have bought some to bring home with me.
I also learned some other interesting Chinese traditions. For example, you should always try and fill your guest's glasses right to the very top. This means that your "friendship is full" (Heather, Dawn, Michelle, Kathy, my Mom, Heather's Mom, Beth, Sue et al are all well aware of this tradition as that is what they have been doing with their wine glasses for years...now they just know why!)
You are also not suppose to drink alone, so we had tons of "toasts". Ganbei is Chinese for bottoms up (literally, you are suppose to drain your glass), Hia (kind of sounded like Hey) just means take a drink....and I taught them "cheers", which they all got a kick out of.
Brad (another brother-in-law) says the Chinese are light-weights in terms of consuming alcohol....but if this is so, I must have been with the Chinese Olympic Drinking team...because after 3 (or maybe 4) glasses of Baoji and many, many cups of beer, I certainly was a bit wobbly (actually I kind of think we all kind of were)!!!!
Anyway, I think we all had a great time, and nobody came and asked me to leave this morning, so all must be well!
As always, pictures attached below!!!!!
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