Nothing To Eat!

So today we took one of the Goodyear people out for lunch. He asked if we wanted to try something different. I was up for that. I was getting a little bored with the Korean place we go everyday. So we go to another place that isn't far from the plant. The guys name is James Gao. So he says the place is known for spicy food. (I'm down for that)

So we go in and sit down. He starts looking over the menu. Jerry is also looking at a menu. Jerry starts screwing around asking me if I want chicken kidneys, pigs heart, duck head, pigs ears...etc... I just laugh.

So I get Q&A'd about what I'll eat. I tell them to just order and I'll eat what I like....BIG MISTAKE!

We had rabbit legs, tofu mush, something from the ocean that looked horrible, duck and 100 year old eggs. There were also a couple other things that I have no idea what they were.

I was starving and nothing looked good. It all looked horrible! The duck looked like they purposely found only pieces that were at bone joints. The rabbit legs just didn't look good. Actually the thing that tasted the best was the 100 year old egg.

It's an egg that has turned purple. They bury and egg in mud with salt for a long time, maybe a month or two? Then dig it up and shell it. It looks like a purple hard boiled egg. I wanted to try it because I saw it on Survivor. I couldn't believe it tasted as well as it did. The only other thing I ate was rice. It was a rough lunch, then at the very end I saw a cockroach running across the wall....nice.

Nancy and I were meeting in the hotel lobby at 6:30. I was outside about 5 minutes early. The doorman was hilarious! Apparently there is a "Massage Parlor" across the street from the hotel...right next to the police station. He assures me the police enjoy a free "Rub and a Tug". I showed him I could count to ten in Chinese on my hand (He was happy about that! Everyone likes that I make an effort to learn things, it really goes along way). He kept talking to me outside...he knew a little English, he was a riot. He would make faces at people he didn't like that walked by, then try to convince me to go to the massage parlor. He also taught me how to say a girl looks beautiful (I double checked that one with Nancy..he was legit). He was good peeps.

We end up going to dinner with two other Rockwell people. I was told we were going to a dumpling place. I was excited, Dumplings=Good. A staple of the Western diet in China...dumplings.

So we get to the place....I look at Tracy, "Um....there are a lot of tanks full of strange animals from the sea? I thought we were getting dumplings?"

"They dumpling too." Tracy informs me, while she's looking at all the sea creatures in tanks. I ask her what she's doing (The other two are on the phone). She says she is picking out our dinner.

There is absolutely nothing that looks familiar here. Even the fish look strange. They have some creatures that look like they should live near the Titanic. There was so much slime everywhere. Very gross.

Tracy asks me what I want?

"Dumplings"

"What else want?" As she is speaking Chinese and pointing at something that is crawling away from her; as she flicks it over on it's other side. (I assume to get a quality look at the slime production)

I tell her I'm going to wait by the stairs. Then I hear a bunch of yelling. A couple large fish jumped out of an aquarium. They started flopping on the floor. Two Chinese ladies were chasing them around the room. Twice as funny watching the action and hearing the Chinese dialect as they chase fish around a restaurant.

I start laughing, which the waitstaff thinks is funny, so they start laughing. So they finally catch the fish, I clap. For some reason I felt like I was at a county fair event in the South....so I clapped. That brought even more laughter.

We finally got the other two off the phone (Chinese people are always on the phone, it'll drive you crazy! No American...and I mean no one...is on the phone as much as the Chinese) OH YEAH! One of the other Rockwell people is Steel/Slum Dog!!! Great to have him back in the fold! It made my night!

So the food starts coming...I'm a little nervous after seeing Sea world China downstairs...I was right to be. It started out OK, some vegetables showed up..those weren't bad. Then a giant bowl of stuff came. I can't even describe it..just stuff...ocean stuff. I asked what it was? "Seafood" says Steel.

"Could you be more specific?"

"Fish and other animals."

"RRRRight." It was SO weird looking...everyone else just dove in. Then they brought out some Oysters and Clams..The problem is the Chinese don't clean them. They just eat everything, including the intestinal tract. (I'll pass on those too!)

Then came some kind of meat on a bone. It kind of looked like a drumstick, but it wasn't chicken. I asked Tracy what it was? "Horn Animal."

"What?"

"How you say horn animal?"

Now I'm going to have some fun, "Rhinoceros?"

"No, not that"

"Unicorn?"

"No, not that"

"Triceratops?"

"No, what that?", then she spoke in Chinese to Nancy. "Ah, how you say....deer?"

I actually tried a bite of that it wasn't to bad. Then the dumplings finally showed up. They were OK, but I've had better dumplings.