Miscellaneous Part 3

I ate dog. I can't believe I did it! I was having dinner with one of the school administrators and one of the dishes that was brought out was a stew. In it, the server added a meat that I thought might have been eel (not that I've ever seen eel that I can recall). It was a dark grey color and cut in long strips. Nope, not eel--dog. My hosts offered me a piece and I guess I suffered a moment of insanity and agreed to eat it. It was an extremely soft meat and not at all what I would have expected if I had ever expected to eat dog. There wasn't much flavor to the meat itself so most of the flavor came from the stew. All in all, it wasn't bad but still not something I care to make a regular part of my diet.

As if the dog weren't enough, a couple days after, I was having lunch in one of the villages near Taian with some friends and they asked me what I wanted to eat. "Order whatever you want," I said. Imagine my surprise when one of the dishes that came out was a platter of halved bugs. I know my face showed shock and trepidation but, with their encouragement and "hakuna matata" ringing in my head, I ate one. Crunchy and slightly nutty-sweet. Again, not something I would put on my favorite-foods list. I asked what kind of bugs they were and one of the girls went and got a live one for me so I could see it. It looked like a cocoon but it was definitely alive. I took it and one of the prepared ones for some pictures.

Just as a little side story to go with the above, on the way out to the village, I rode in a car with some people who had slip-covers on their car seats and the steering wheel and other surfaces of the car. This in itself is not that extraordinary but it was all an eye-watering pastel pink with embroidered roses and frills. I wish I had my camera! If Umbridge had a car, it would look like this!

I went back to the park to get some pictures of the lotus flowers that are blooming. The first picture is of the lotus pond. It was a rainy day (surprise) and I enjoyed watching the water drops collecting in the leaves that were easily two and a half feet wide.

While I was at the park, I decided to record some of the other images there since I had made a post earlier about the park.

This is a pagoda in the lake and a moon-bridge:

And some people playing cards and Chinese chess:

On my way out, I was spotted by some of my students so I had to spend a few minutes taking pictures with them. Then I had them take a picture for me and one of them posed in front of the "guardian" Mickey.

Here is a demonstration of what I mean when I say the Chinese are easily entertained.

Start with tiny beads:

Add beads to a bottle of water:

Wait one day until--presto:

And that's it! They love it. I've seen these bottles of beads several places. Sometimes I think it must be nice to be so easily entertained, to possess that kind of innocence and then sometimes I really feel like they are deprived of so much...

This picture is of a bottle of water I bought one day. If you don't know why I find it funny, I'm not going to explain it to you.