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Published: September 20th 2007
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snake for lunch
steve, flora, fabrice, candice, and me at the "snake" restaurant So the internet's been down again and therefore I haven't been able to write in awhile. For some reason only skype works, which I guess is good..but we can't look at any websites..the computer guys have been working on it though so eventually we should be able to get online, for now though its back to the internet cafe, lol.
so anyway, the latest news..
Flora called us Sunday morning and asked us if we wanted to meet her for lunch, and then she'd take us to setup our cellphones and to the wholesale flea market place. She met us at our school and then we took cabs to a restaurant not too far away. While looking at the menu (which is all in Chinese without any pics) Steve and Drew recognized the character for "snake", they asked Flora, and she said that yes, they serve snake. She said she'd never had it though, and of course then we had to to order it, lol. We also ordered crab and some other random dishes. A few min later they brought out the crab, alive, and asked if it was ok (i'm pretty much used to that now)..but then they
snake for lunch
steve with a spoonful of snake blood, soo gross, lol came and asked us to come look at the snake!!! Flora and Candice stayed back, but the rest of us went right by the kitchen, and there was the live snake in a net on the floor!! LOL it was crazy, lol. After a little while they brought out all of the dishes
except for the snake (trying a little html, with the italicizing, haha). We spent the whole meal wondering about what it would look like served, and of course how it would taste. Then they brought out 2 small bowls. One had some clear liquid with somesort of snake organ floating in it! The other one was a bowl of snake blood!! We seriously felt like we were in a movie or on one of those crazy traveling shows, lol. Fabrice went for the mystery organ, and discovered that it had been soaking in some kind of liquor which was insanely strong and revolting, lol..then Steve and Drew took spoonfuls of the blood and realized that it had also been mixed with crazy strong liquor. So, still needing to try it, i just dipped a peice of eggplant in it..and well, you couldn't really taste it all,
snake for lunch
all of us holding up our pieces of snake, lol thank god! lol. Finally, when we were pretty much finished with all of the other dishes, the snake platter came out. Buried under a ton of hot red peppers were pieces of snake cut up, but still with the skin. Surprisingly eating the snake I had just seen alive wasn't that bad, considering that half of the time I have no idea what kind of meat I'm eating, even when we think we know what we ordered, lol. Besides being very boney, it taste that bad either, basically like fish..although I didn't even attempt to eat the skin which supposedly your supposed to..
On Monday Candice and I met with Fun Shi Ja for the first time. She called a little before we were supposed to meet and asked if we'd eaten dinner, and then said that she was in her car on the way. Most people here don't have cars, so that was pretty exciting, lol. She met us at our school and then took us to a restaurant which she said is famous for crabs in Zhanjiagang. Each table had a hole in the middle with a big bowl in it. They put the crabs and some
typhoon pic
the typhoon from my apt. broth and vegetables in the bowl and then veryone can just take some..it was very good! I had brought my english/chinese dictionary and we were able to kind of have a conversion while we ate, lol. Basically we figured out that she's from Zhanjiagang and works for a company which trades cotton grown in China. After dinner we walked around on the "walking street" and shopped a bit. Fun Shi Ja wanted to buy a dictionary like mine since the one she has is too big to carry around so we went to the bookstore, and and then looked at some clothes and stuff. It was pretty cool cause were able to point to things and ask how to say it, and so was she, except that we were walking around with our pens and notebooks, which was a little awkward, lol. especially when crowds of people were watching and surrounding us, lol. there is seriously no such thing as personal space here, lol. I've learned that it's perectly fine for someone to come right behind us and actually stick their head over my shoulder to see what I am writing in my notebook,lol..and I'm supposed to act as if
kids marching
a pic of the kids marching..from my apt. their not even there. the last part's a little tough cause even though I don't get annoyed at them it's almost impossible for me not to laugh, lol, but apparently if you acknowledge them then they lose face, but thats a whole other complicated Chinese culture thing that I don't yet understand. so anyway, we wlked around there for awhile and then she drove us back.
Tuesday was the first really gross rainy day since we've been here. It rains sometimes off and on but never really all day. Then around 4:00 I got an email from Kelvin, the CIEE program director in Shanghai, letting us know that a super typhoon was headed for Zhejiang Province, south of Shanghai. Being that we're in Jiangsu Province, north of Shanghai I figured that that's probably why it had been raining all day. Then however, Candice Drew and Steve came to let me know Carol had called to let us know that school was closed on Wed. and that all of the kids were getting picked up to go home for the night. Within the next hour, as parents started showing up to get their kids, it started
pouring. Luckily I had some ramen noodle type soup..and ate that for dinner. We spent the rest of the night hanging out and watching CSI (which I have about 9 dvds worth, lol). Wed. (yesterday) morning I got up around 10am and wasn't even raining. I talked to mom for a bit on skype..and was able to see my email, but couldn't get online to look at a weather report.pretty annoying. Even more annoying though was that none of my tv channels were even covering the typhoon! So weird, not one channel even mentioned it all day, until about 6pm. I called Angela, and asked her if she had any info on whether the typhoon was still coming or had mostly passed, and she said she had no idea, but that she had talked to her friend who works in Shanghai and she was at work..in the typhoon, lol. A few hours later it started to rain again, but not that bad so Candice and I decided to trek across the street and see if we could get some noodles. The husband and wife who own the noodle place were there, and we each got a big bowl of noodles and broth. We then headed back and watched dvds the rest of the day.
So, this morning all of the kids came back to school, and we were back to the regular schedule. We were told last week that there wouldn't be school on Fri of this week, so we planned to leave tonight and spend the long weekend in Shanghai. As you can tell, the plans were changed..we were told around 11 this morning that since we missed class yesterday, we will now have classes on Friday. So we decided to leave tomorrow night instead. Carol then told us that Candice and I were to come to the field on Saturday for the primary teacher's race, lol. Being that everyone actually needs things in Shanghai, and that Saturday is Candice's birthday, however, Candice and Steve asked her if it was alright if we missed it. Its kind of annoying cause it probably would have been hilarious to see and be a part of, but I really do want to go to Shanghai and Carol said that they'll do it again in the Winter..and that she'd give us a bit more notice, so we'll see. Also, speaking of last min changes, my last class today was cancelled about 10 min before it was supposed to start because they were practicing marching on the field. I went watched for a bit and was pretty crazy, they march perfectly like soldiers, every single one of them, lol. soo weird, lol.
well, thats about it. got my early class tomorrow (9:10 haha) so I'm gonna try to upload some pics and then go back and watch some CSI, lol... then we're leaving for Shangai around 5:30 tomorrow and i'll be back sunday 😊
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Liz C
non-member comment
craziness
Hey Lee! I can't believe you were in a typhoon!!! That is so crazy... Also, you're apartment looks so nice and your kids are adorable. I want to talk to each one of them in my baby/puppy voice. Are you having fun? Learning the language? Feeling acclimated yet? I am very jealous - I bet China is awesome. Keep writing and I'll hopefully talk to you soon!