Crunchy Frog!

So much for dry white toast. We decided to risk it again and head to the Cafe Marco in the hotel for more food adventures. They had more Chinese type food this time than we had for dinner the other night.

For you Monty Python fans, yes they did have Crunchy Frog. Braised frog and vegetables the card said, but I'm not sure there was any frog meat in it. Basically just bones and breading. I spit it out as soon as I put it in.

Snails were better last night.

Oysters and abalone were very good.

My stomach is going to hate me.

Another interesting observation on elevator etiquette...there is no talking to strangers on the elevator. Brian struck up a conversation with an Aussie at the hotel while Dilys and Chris were visiting and I thought Dilys was going to die of embarrassment. "We do NOT do that here," she said.

The Blues Brothers diet

"IHOPE" that the food here doesn't have bones in it...


I'm going to do a combo Jake and Elwood thing at lunch and have dry white toast and a coke. Never mind the 4 fried chickens, although KFC is quite popular here. (Side note...people here eat their KFC with little plastic gloves. Touching your mouth here is very rude, so "finger lickin' good" is not an effective slogan.)

A couple other things:

Last night at dinner one of the guys asked if I was cold. I said "no, actually I'm quite warm, why?" and everyone at the table got these shocked looks on their faces. I realized then that everyone in the restaurant was wearing sweaters, wool coats...Brian and I were the only people in the place with short sleeve shirts on.

Like Ireland, people here are very concerned with American politics. They asked if I followed the election and who I planned to vote for.

The mirror in my hotel is a "skinny mirror" like my living room mirror at home, and the lighting is amazing. The mirror in the elevator is a "fat mirror." It's an emotional roller-coaster just to walk to work.

The hotel has a perpetual loop of a Michael Buble CD going on in the elevators, club and lobby. I'm starting to enjoy it.

Take a picture, it will last longer!

Ran across the street to spend some quality time in my 5-star bathroom. Whew. But the good thing was that I took the opportunity to call home and talk to Dad for a bit (sorry mom, I forget it's Wednesday there).

During the 1/2 block trek back to the building, it was again very obvious how different I am here. As I was crossing the street, a man crossing toward me walked right up to me, staring. I walked around him and he turned and followed me back to my building entrance. Then standing in the elevator lobby, another guy stood right next to me, very close, and just *stared* until the elevator came. I rode up the elevator with another woman, and since the inside of the elevator is all mirrored I got to look at our reflection...I had to be at least 2 feet taller, 150 lbs heavier, and 74 shades lighter than her. It was like we were different species.

I like China more than I thought I would, but I'm tired of standing out, tired of feeling self-conscious, tired of not knowing how to communicate, tired of having to point out food to order it, and then spitting most of it out when I get it. I think I'm ready to go back home, or at least back to Hong Kong where I can focus on important things like shopping.

And nobody thought I was well-adjusted...

I actually OVERSLEPT today! I didn't wake up until 7:50! In your face, jet lag!

So why am I so tired?

Unsurprisingly, I'm also feeling a little gurgly again, a bit of the Mao's revenge. I thought I was doing ok but even tums and soda aren't really doing me much good.

In fact...maybe I'll just write more later, time to take a walk.

It's Official...

I can finally say I've eaten true Chinese food.

We took the team out to the restaurant in our office building, very well known for Guangdong food, and let them order a feast for us. Among the selections were tongue, pigeon, snail (my favorite!), little shrimps that you eat with the shell on (they're better than you think), bean curd (I liked it, not sure why I avoided it so much in Taiwan), fishes with the head on (the only thing I didn't like) and more typical dishes like chicken, beef, noodles. I hold to my theory, however, that the Chinese cannot do a proper dessert, and I've pledged to bring homemade brownies for the next trip.



I finally feel like I have gotten a chance to know the team. We talked about everything: the weather of course, travel, the spring holiday (Chinese New Year), and even verboten subjects like politics and religion ("Chicago is very corrupt, yes?"), confirming yet another theory that beer builds bridges (thanks, Tsingtao!)

During one part of the conversation I think it was Brian that said he was going to go somewhere, and without thinking I replied "Do what you want, it's a free country." I don't think anybody appreciated the irony of that, but I thought it was pretty funny.

Speaking of a free country, I'm not sure who's still reading this but I myself cannot. I can bring up Blogger to create and edit posts, but I cannot view the actual blog when I'm in China. Many sites here that we can access from the US are unavailable here. (Pandora, internet radio, parts of Yahoo, Wikipedia...) So I can't wait to go home and read my own blog. I also have pictures but I'm having trouble posting them. I haven't taken many, and I have none of myself at all, but I hope to fix that when our test lead takes us around the city tomorrow night.

No, seriously...after you...

Ok I'm posting a lot today but I'm feeling a little overwhelmed work-wise and this is a good way to get my mind off of that (and the increasing heat and noise).

I'm happy to say that I'm on Day 5 of Avoiding Squatting to Pee. There are both eastern and western-style toilets here, so I haven't had to worry about that yet. (I also haven't had to worry about toilet paper, because it's been stocked everywhere, but that isn't to say it's not an issue here, because everyone's desk sports a roll of toilet paper right next to the coffee mug.)

Close call today though. After lunch I walked into the ladies' room just ahead of another girl. When I saw that the two western-style stalls were taken, I gestured for the other girl to go ahead of me. She insisted that I go first and there was an awkward couple of seconds before a western-style stall freed up and I hurried in. Whew!

Cola!

I try so hard not to be the Ugly American when I travel, but I can't help desperately needing a big cold Diet Coke at least twice a day. Diet Coke is rare here, in fact when I brought one into the office from the hotel, several people mentioned that they didn't know such a thing existed in Shenzhen. So if I'm desperate I'll order the Real Thing of the Real Thing. Today we went out with a very nice lady from the Shenzhen office who up until recently was working out of Chicago. She took us to a steakhouse (figuring that we were sick of Chinese food, even though since most of our eating takes place at the hotel club bar we still eat quite a bit of western food) . She taught me how to order a coke (WITH ICE!). I was going to be all cool and write the phrase here but I seem to have forgotten it already. Oh well, back to pointing and gesturing. Most of the restaurants have picture menus (in fact our restaurant today had menus rivaling the size of the original Ten Commandments) so pointing is very effective.

The menus are also American-inspired in terms of drinks...maybe too much so. Our drink menu at lunch actually featured the items "Blow Job" and "Orgasm". At $28 RMB (about $4 US), that's quite a bargain!