Food times!

 The highlights of this past week are definitely all food related. This is what happens when a foodie comes to China and gets immersed in a big food culture:

The first highlight was on Friday night. Thanks to my friend Sharon in Pasadena, we met with her cousin and her cousin’s family for a beautiful and delicious Peking duck dinner. Duyu, Xiaoqing, and their son are really great, friendly people. We definitely had a language barrier and it was quite loud in the restaurant, but my general impression of them was very positive. Their son is about 10 years old and very cute. He practiced his English with us a little bit when he had the chance. They very generously treated me and Claire to an absolutely fantastic northeastern dinner, probably one of the best I have ever had in China. 

The second highlight was Saturday brunch. In the first stage, Phoebe and Sarah came over for brunch around 10:30. Claire was late, so we started cooking breakfast before she got there. I introduced both of them to the delicious birdy-in-a-basket egg and bread combination. It seems I’m conquering China through eggs and bread, because I have two new birdy-in-a-basket converts. Claire came over just before they left and cooking with her went to a whole new level. My breakfast that morning was EPIC. I stir fried onions and garlic with soy sauce, made two birdies in a basket, and turned the whole mess into one delicious sandwich, with the birdies as the bread part and the stir fried onions in the middle. SO GOOD.

On another note, I’m in Hefei, in Anhui province, for the next week. All the Dipont interns are doing a TEFL training course so we can get more flexible work visas. My trip here involved going to the train station and taking the bullet train out here. Apparently Hefei was the end of the line; when I got off the train, so did hundreds of other people, completely mobbing the train station and filling up the cab line really fast. Hefei doesn’t have very many foreigners, so when I exited the station, the heiche (黑车) vultures descended. (A heiche is a cab driver who would rather charge a set amount than do an honest faire, and often charge double or triple the honest rate.) At that point I was entirely sick of crowds (as happens when you are in a pushing, shoving mob for a while) and let one of them feel the sharp edge of my tongue. I suppose that was unfair of me, but when someone won’t stop badgering you in China, the only thing that works is pretty much yelling that you don’t want whatever they are offering. Repeatedly.

Instead of dealing with the whole large-crowd-crazy-heiche-people thing, I left the area of the train station and walked about a third of a mile away from the station. I successfully made my way to a location where I could grab a cab with next to no problem. An impatient driver decided it would be a good idea to nudge me with his car while I was trying to get into the cab. I think I failed to hide my look of complete and utter disgust. He wasn’t moving nearly fast enough to hurt me, I was just completely annoyed at how obnoxious nudging someone with a car is. 

Luckily, I had a very nice cab driver who dropped me off at the right gate and I found my hotel (actually a guesthouse at a university) with no problem. Claire and I are roommates again, and so far the only other person that I’ve seen from Dipont is Danie, the intern who arrived late. Claire and I met her tonight and Danie introduced us to this crazy Beijing soap opera involving four brothers. 

Anyway, I don’t expect that I will have a lot of time for blog posts for the next two weeks. I have this TEFL class until Sunday afternoon (Sept 2) and go back to work on Monday September 3, which will be my first week of students. I fully expect to be exhausted and half-crazy by the time this work spree ends and may need my usual blog-time to sleep. I’ll try to post a few pictures or something as a consolation prize until I can get real posts up again. 

Oh, and we found a lobster wandering around my campus. Phoebe, Sarah, and I couldn't figure out if our lake has freshwater lobsters or if he escaped from a stewpot. Or maybe he's lying and he's not actually a lobster, which is definitely a possibility.