Communication Breakdown

I almost forgot the funniest experience of yesterday. We stopped at the South China Sea Pearl Museum on the way home. Like the jade carving factory, they walk you through the history and process of getting from raw material to finished product, and then they show you a few pieces of their fine merchandise. This was not just a pull a few string-o-pearls out from under the glass, oh no, only in China would you have a complete runway show of Chinese girls dressed up and sporting the company’s finest pearls. I wish I had video taped or even taken a photo, but I didn’t want to be rude. I was fighting laughter pretty much the whole runway show.

After dinner we went to get a massage and it may or may not have been the best foot massage ever!!! The three exclamation marks indicate that yes, this was the best foot massage ever! I have happy feet now.

After the massage we went to a local little restaurant to have a night time snack. It is common for Chinese to eat a light dinner and then have a snack at night. Sorry guys, this wasn’t a place where they had cages in the window (although it did offer interesting menu choices); we drove by a place earlier in the day but I couldn’t get my camera out in time. This restaurant had street side dining and it is customary to throw bones of the food on the ground. There is a saying about the food that the Chinese people eat. Chinese people eat anything with legs except people and anything with wings except airplanes. I will leave it to you to guess what was ordered by the pictures. Feel free to post guesses.

This morning we went to the Reed Flute Cave, the most famous cave in the mountains surrounding Guilin. Apparently, most of the mountains have really cool caves. Most of the people in the city fled to the mountains to hide in the caves during the Japanese occupation of China during WWII. This cave is full of stalagmites and stalagtites which have been beautifully illuminated with various colored lights. B, I’m dedicating these photos to you; science rocks! Woot woot!

We took a two hour flight to Shanghai. It is a “baby city, only become trade harbor city in 16th century,” according to our local tour guide, Mr. Wong. Before that it was a small fishing village founded in 1291. The oldest buildings in the city are in the Bund and only date back to 100ish years and they happen to be of a British and French influence from the colonial concessions established for trade after the Opium Wars (1840s and 1860s). Across the river is the famous landmark of the futuristic TV tower that marks the Shanghai skyline. The buildings on this side of the river are only 10 years old.

We ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant; aka the location of our communication breakdown. Ordering food is usually done by us pointing to pictures in the menu. We ordered an Udon noodle hot pot. We thought they would bring out all the food at once to be cooked at the table. What we didn’t realize is that we ordered it in courses. This sashimi cut fish was served to us and we thought it was supposed to go in the hot pot so we waited and waited, all the other food came for the rest of our party. Half our party left the restaurant after they finished eating before we realized that they were waiting for us to finish our sashimi fish so they could bring out the next course of our dinner. Two and a half hours later, we left the restaurant. It was kind of funny.