Entry #8 - We score in China! Tuesday's adventures

Tuesday morning started with the standard routine of breakfast in the hotel and a walk to the office. The work morning had a brief break to celebrate December birthdays in the break room (there is one in each of the three floors of RSI. The room was packed, the excitement palpable (one of my personal favorite sayings), and the cake delicious. Nice to see the group here acting like a large group of friends - which is what I was brought up on from the ICOM days.
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For lunch today, we walked a couple of blocks to another nice restaurant known for their spicy food. It was a standard (for China) lazy-susan table and the staff soon was bringing out our meals. The platters most definitely had a spicier smell and were noticeably more red than all of our previous dining experiences. Some things were hotter than others but nothing was too much for Mike and myself. Very tasty.
After work this evening, Mike and I were invited to join about a dozen RSI men over at a nearby university gym to partake in their weekly basketball night. The facility seemed like a Russian-built university from the 60's. Dramatic high ceilings, and a somewhat cold feel - both in temperature and overall "feel". We meandered through the hallways (past a large room of 20 ping-pong tables) and entered the gym. Is is the size of a standard full basketball court with wrought-iron decorated windows lining either side. The room was definitely a bit worn and a bit dimly lit (you see the excuses are starting already). We changed into our "game gear" and did a brief shoot around. I had originally planned to just shoot around to not risk blowing out my knee (I didn't have my brace or even basketball shoes), however, I decided to play for a couple of minutes and take it easy. Everyone was friendly, and after getting my fill of throwing up misses and the occasional basket (hence the title of this blog- scoring in China) - I called for a sub. For the record, I lasted about 40 minutes. Mike stayed in for the whole time (about 2 hours). A good time was had by all. By 7pm, the next group (whom we didn't know) arrived for their time in the gym for some volleyball. Finally, after another Chinese bathroom stop (think large troughs) in the gym, we were off to dinner.
The restaurant the took us to was close to our hotel, and had a beautiful appearance. It's wide building face had many individual dining rooms overlooking the street. It was probably 20 rooms across by at least 4 stories tall. Very amazing looking indeed (Mike got some pics). Inside, the appearance was no less amazing - beautiful marble grand stairways, marble railings, and marble floors were everywhere. This was accentuated by the massive chandelier that was 4'deep by 50' long over the foyer. We proceeded upstairs to our private room - along the way, we could tell this was a high end restaurant - turns out to be one of the top seafood restaurants in all of Dalian. Mike and I both felt under dressed as we walked by customers all in suits and ties. After getting to our room, we walked downstairs to "help" pick out our dinner. We went with crab, flounder, oysters, sea cucumber (I wanted to try it), and other meats and dishes. Dinner was excellent as usual and the evening had more of a "guy's dinner" feel than any other meal. After all it was 6 of the guys who played basketball with us that evening that took us there). We had a number of Chinese beers. Each one poured into champaign glasses and slammed with a "Cheers" and "Bottoms up". Luckily for me, Chinese beer is very light (similar to miller lite - but even a bit lighter). After a number of drinks, Mike got them to say "Punish it!" instead of "cheers" as that is his famous saying for slamming a drink. By the time dinner was over, I was exhausted and again over-full (Lisa - please buy me some bigger clothes for Christmas!). They walked us back to the hotel and we called it a night around 9:30pm.