Adventures in Guangzhou!

Making the best use of our vacation time, Ari and I headed out immediately after to meet his some of his GZ friends, the Yale-in-China crew. Now I could put faces to the names of people with whom Ari celebrates all major holidays, birthdays, and un-birthdays. In essence, I met Ari's family at one of their local hangouts. The bar, called "Sleeping Wood," was located in what seemed to be downtown behind a holiday inn. We sat outside and enjoyed a few pitchers of the local brew while the bar played surprisingly hip reggae music through a couple of speakers. Good times, good people.

Day 6 meant dim sum for breakfast! Delicious! We happily stuffed ourselves full of yummy treats in Ari's favorite dim sum restaurant. Unlike last year, our white skin did not frighten off the hostesses and we were allowed to sit with all other restaurant-goers. [Ed. note- it's true. I often joke that whenever we show up to a restaurant with more than a few waiguoren (foreigners), they immediately try to stick us in a side room as a sort of quarantine. Of course in reality they think they're just being nice by putting us in a private location but we almost always prefer the chaotic atmosphere of the main room.] It's quite an experience to sit near regulars who sit and chat over plates of delicious treats and multiple pots of tea. But again, no rest for the Wolfe family and we were off to do a quick run through the Qingping Market. Here we made a stop at a tea store and sat through a tasting of several high quality teas as Ari tried to translate the sales pitch of the women serving. Afterwards we popped our heads into a storefront winery where I was thrilled to be able to see such delicacies as snake penis wine, cock testis wine, and pit viper wine. I was even more thrilled to try some Chinese medicinal tea (at a different locale) in the hopes that it would clear up my hacking cough. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep this scrumptious drink down and spat most of it out onto the sidewalk (sorry GZ municipality!). Maybe it was the crocodile parts in the tea that made me throw it back up. Who knows. Magically though, my cough disappeared by the next day. [Ed. note- no joke. I swear by this stuff. Sure it tastes like death, but you pretty much always feel better after you chug it.]

After a quick Thai lunch on Shamian Island, we hopped in a taxi and went across the city to Ari's school where we were the special guest stars for the second year in a row. We introduced ourselves and then answered some interesting questions from Ari's kids. It's always a highlight to meet more great students with EXCELLENT names such as Trousers, Silent, and Easy. Again, China rocks! [Ed. note- I've been meaning to blog about this. It seems that I have lost all perspective on what's weird in China because Ilana was so fired up about the names and they all seemed normal to me. Even "Black Sheep," and "Virgin." Not quite sure what that says about me.]

More classes and more questions marked day 7 of the vacation. More interestingly though, this was the day my dad and I had been waiting for. It was hot pot day, a meal we had missed out on during our first adventure in China. There had been so much build up by Ari and his roommate, Nick, that the anticipation was just about killing me. After waiting forever to be seated at the restaurant, Ari did a masterful job of ordering way too much food, including two kinds of meat, three kinds of mushrooms, tarot root, "frozen" tofu, noodles, and potatoes. While waiting for everything to cook we began working on one of many bottles of beer. Once the broth came to a boil and we began to place food in the bowl, the true experience began. It was a race to stuff our faces as quickly as possible, perhaps in an attempt to keep the spice to a minimum. For the first time in my life, I unbuttoned my pants after eating our feast. A picture should have been taken to commemorate this occasion because it might have been once in a lifetime!