The main course of today began in the city of Suzhou with lunch. The prequel though was our departure from Max’s house this morning. We woke up bright and early around 7 to shower eat breakfast and be on the road by 9. The trip to Suzhou was about 2 hours given traffic with another 1 ½ hours to get to Shanghai. Max’s dad had to rent a mini van thing to get us there because our entire luggage wouldn’t fit in even the biggest trunk of a car.
So after an intense game of luggage tetris with Gordon’s awkwardly enormous bag, we said our good byes to Mama Zhang. It was really sad to leave and it sucked that it was so rushed. She had to make it to work, and we had to make a lunch appointment with one of Mr. Zhang’s friends. We told her thank you in our best butchered Chinese and we were off on the road to Suzhou.
In Suzhou we met with one of Max’s dad’s friends from college to eat lunch on our way to Shanghai. The whole car ride we basically slept, but when we got out eating lunch the food was an immediate awakening. As if the meals we have been having weren’t memorable enough, this restaurant easily met the standard. When we got to the restaurant we were once again escorted through a really nice building with walls covered with bottles of wine, to our own private room in the back with the giant spinning glass table like the very first meal we had here. The food also was right up to par. Max’s dad’s college buddy realized we had been in China for a little while now and asked for some of our favorite dishes to provide as well as some new ones, believe it or not, more interesting than anything we’ve had yet. The two that really stand out were our first experience with duck tongue, and this really special fish from the Yangtze River. The fish we ate was the first thing here we have ever had where they bring out an individual entrée for each person. Typically a dish is put on the spinning table and passed around the table for each person to take their helping, but this fish was brought out on individual plates for each person. This was also the first dish Max ever asked us to finish. Now immediately realizing it was special for him to ask us to finish it, our curiosity got the best of us asking him why. He told us it was a delicacy and was really expensive. If we were to waste any part of it, it would be disrespectful to the host. This for Gordon was hell because he has had food poisoning from fish on multiple occasions in the past, so pig brains no problem, but fish, only for Max. Now after we were done eating our fish delicacy from the Yangtze, Max told us this fish in particular requires the chef to have a particular license to serve, which is why it’s so expensive. George immediately is reminded of something he had seen on the discovery channel about special fish you need a license to cook, and as were finishing the fish decides to tell us about how the Japanese fish he saw required a license to serve because it was a poisonous fish. Max with a huge grin on his face then tells us that George is wrong because the fish isn’t Japanese, its Chinese, and we just ate it. Oh yeah, and that one drop of that fishes blood would kill an elephant. But no need to worry, because if it were prepared wrong we would already be dead, and were not.
Grateful for lives, we got back in the car and made our way to Shanghai. The drive to Shanghai was just another hour and a half in a car and before we knew it we were in Shanghai. The rest of our day was just relaxing for a big day tomorrow. We walked around the city for a while and went out to find a hole in the wall place for dinner. We found this place that was okay and decided to have McDonald’s burgers for desert. The hormone filled pasteurized food with our standard helping of high fructose corn syrup really hit the spot and was a great compliment to our other poisonous meal today. A little giddy and excited for tomorrow we made our way back to the hotel and sat and had a nice cup of coffee before heading to bed.
Tomorrow we are planning on leaving for the world expo by 7:30 in order to try and beat the crowd to the Saudi Arabia tent. Were meeting one of Max’s friends from high school in China and she is hooking us up with VIP passes to the Chinese tent in the afternoon. We are also planning on going to one of Gordon’s Dad’s student’s concerts at the best Jazz bar in Shanghai after the expo. Anyways I’m going to get some rest for our big day. We still love all you guys at home. We all miss our lady friends and hope you miss us too. Families, this is our last stop so we will see you all soon. Hope all is well and the blog is not getting boring yet. Much love, peace.
Marty
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