I ATE WHAT?!

---

Today, I woke up early to reserve another night at the hotel just in case my boss forgot about my arrival. Turns out that was a good idea because I wouldn't having an apartment until the next day. After trekking around the city on 3 cabs because no one knew where to find the Huiyouhuayuan Tower, I finally made it around 9:30 am. I met the two secretaries who had taken care of my arrangements and was instructed to just go hang out until 3pm (seems to be the norm at this company based on previous e-mail correspondence). I went back to the Canadian coffee shop where I met the owner, Kevin, and learned that the shop was named after his son, Peter. After enjoying myself for a few hours, Miss Zheng called to invite me to dinner later that night at Xinandongge.

They finally came to pick me up in a cab a bit after 5 and we headed over. Now silly me, making greenhorn mistakes, tried to put the seat belt on in the cab over my white dress shirt. But of course, they don't use seat belts in China, so this one had gotten particularly dirty. Long story short, I had a deep black dirt line down my shirt from upper right shoulder to left hip and it looked pretty funny walking into this fancy restaurant. We get inside and are taken to this large kitchen where you pick out what you'd like to eat. Just as I had heard, the seafood here was off the hook so they showed us around and let us pick what we wanted to eat. Not really fearless of any food anymore after my first trip to China I said, I'll eat anything. NEVER do that in China because it literally does mean anything. They also asked me if I ate the octopus and sea cucumber "huo-de" which I didn't quite understand at the time but found out at dinner.

We headed upstairs to a fancy, private room on the third floor where they offered to turn the TV for me to watch. I would never dream of watching a TV during a meal at a 4 or 5 star restaurant in the states, but rather at No. 1 Chinese on campus. Nonetheless I told them I would better prefer light conversation so that's where it went. They began bringing out various dishes including something that looked like bugs, but I thought was just prepared to look segmented. I began eating those and was slightly put off but they didn't resemble the ashy little silkworms I ate in Qingdao so I deemed them okay and continued to eat. They then brought out the octopus and sea cucumber. At that point I knew what they meant by "huo-de".....LIVE. The closest thing I have ever eaten to being alive is extra rare steak which is delicious by the way. But these things were another thing. Once you poked one of the legs, everything in the bowl began moving---it was quite foul really. Miss Fan wouldn't even eat it at first and when Miss Zheng poked it with her chopstick, it grabbed onto it with its suction cups and I was in complete shock. I then grabbed a piece of the octopus leg and dipped it in soy sauce and wasabi and stuck it in my mouth. It immediately suction-cupped the inside of my mouth and I about freaked. I quickly chewed it up and swallowed it before I did anything stupid. Surprisingly it tasted just like sushi, but the movement was definitely a new touch. I told Miss Fan that it latched on and she about screamed. The rest of the night I continued to eat the live dishes and they were quite impressed. When they asked if there was anything I didn't eat, I said bugs. I began to describe silkworms to them as I couldn't remember the word. Mr. Liu then chuckled and told me that I had eaten about 7 of them (as big as my thumb) and told me they were called "yong". At that point I was done and they took me back to my hotel.

I will be back at work around 8 tomorrow for more adventures and hopefully in time to see my new apartment! 😊

---