Wednesday, December 8 - An old Dragon is slayed!

For Wednesday's lunch, I was joined by a long -time friend from the office, Chrsitine. After letting me choose a style (Shanghai), she chose the location as the Dalian Shanghai Restaurant (soudned appropriate). It is located just west of the Swishotel in a very fancy building. Inside the quite elaborately decorated restuarant, we proceeded upstairs to the large dining area and received a small table next to the window. Entering the dining room, I remembered this as a place that I had been on my very first visit and dined on some tasty "winged crab". A slight sidebar discussion here - I was then reminded how I have not yet had the chance to eat my favorite food here in Dalian - the crab. I believe that is on the schedule for this weekend. From what I gathered, the oil spill that occured in the Yellow Sea this summer has the locals squeemish about the crab. I see it in the restaurants, but they are not ordering it.

Anyway, for lunch, we chose sweet & sour shrimp w/ cantalope as a main dish. This was absolutely fantastic. It was similar to S&S shrimp back home with the same sweet sauce - but in that same sauce was cantalope - it really worked well together. Best of all, the shrimp was actually peeled - finally. Additionally we had tasty servings of fried beef (think of soft fried beef jerky), mini asparagus, tufo wrapped mushroom, and chinese dumpling? All absolutely terrific.

After work the campus manager and others took me to an old nemesis. A Spicey hot-pot restaurant on the east side of town. I hadn't been there since my first Dalian visit (maybe the second one). Anyway, that is the place where I stupidly ate the oysters raw, instead of putting them in the hotpot to cook. Mike and I paid the price the next morning with one of the very sickest days of my life. It was 12 hours of the most wretched sickness imaginable. Think of wringing out a wet towel to the point that it turns to tiny dried pieces and that will approach just how hard my system squeesed out any drop of moisture in my boday that fatefull day. I dont think I felt 100% for a week after that. Anyway, we were lead to our private dinign room upstairs and seaated at a table. My old foe drew first blood - almost literally. Under the table was a small shelf about 3 " lower than the table that I nearly shattered both kneecaops on. Indeed, this would be a difficult fight for sure. Now knowing I would not be putting my legs under the table, I was fortunate to be at a corner, where I could sit sideways. There was just not enough room go get my knees under the table.

They ordered a large pitcher of was seemd exactly like Orange Julieus - delicious for a pre-dinenr treat. For the hotpot food, we received mushrooms, steak slices, shrimp paste (ground up shrimp shaped into small balls), tofu cubes, and some hand made noodles. One by one the went into the pot. The hot pots were actually divided into 2 sections. One had a very spicey red broth, and the other a cream colored broth that was much more suitable for me. Over the next two and a half hours we enjoyed our meal and even did some shots of Chinese white rice drinks. They were actually quite good, a bit strong, but w/o the strong alcohol aftertaste.

At the end of dinner, we enjoyed some apple slices and I was dropped off at the hotel via taxi around 9:00pm and called it a night. Fast forward to tomorrow (Thurday) morning and I can report that my system is fine and I have conquered the restarant (however, not the oyster, which we skipped).

Over the couse of this visit, I am beginning to notice something very rewarding. I am now slowly becoming albe to pick out key words in their conversations and generally get the jist of what is being said. It is really hard to describe, one minute, their conversations were seeming like an incohent sequence of noises, and the next, key words were just popping into my head and making the conversation somewhat understandable. I hope that ability continues to grow and that I don't lose it once I return home. It is just like those moments in the movie "Awakenings" where the patients were becoming aware. Good night all!