Karaoke and Duck (and Frog)

Yesterday we went to another hot pot place, and this time I got pictures so as to demonstrate what a hot pot is.

I think we're both supposed to be looking at the camera. Oh well. That's Jenn on the left. She's Tram's roommate. Will and I often eat lunch with them. As you can see, the hot pot is powered by an inverted metal funnel filled with hot coals, or, as we would call it in America, a "lawsuit waiting to happen." There is a sort of broth filling the rest of the container, and you throw all manner of meats and vegetables and noodles into it, wait 30 seconds, and take them out. Eat, repeat, and enjoy.

Last night I was lucky enough to fall in with a group of people who were being led by a guy who had been here for a semester and brought along his Chinese girlfriend. She was extremely nice and spoke fairly good English, and she knew all the best places to go in Beijing.

Before I talk about dinner, just as a side note I wanted to mention that the guy who had been here last semester (I forgot his name, but I think it was Dan...) gave us a really great idea for something fun to do once we've been here a while. Once he had been in Beijing for a few months, he said, he would play a game where he would put 10RMB ($1.3) into his wallet, hop on a bus, and then after an hour or so on the bus, get off and try to make his way back to campus. I'm not sure I would do this alone, but in a small group this could be a fun game. You could even send out multiple groups and make it a competition. Nothing like getting completely lost in a foreign city to learn your way around.

For dinner we had the goal of Peking Duck, and so we went to a restaurant that specialized in that and we were seated in the back room, as usual (I think it's because we're a large group, not because we're Americans...). The decorations in the room were all very large posters of Mao, farm workers taking up the cause, and various communist propaganda that started looking more and more attractive as our democratic system of meal selection became tiresome. In the end, we decided to let our Chinese friend become benevolent dictator and decide what the rest of us would eat.

We enjoyed a feast of duck, noodles, tofu, frog soup (Glenn explained to me that frogs tasted so much like chickens because they are really very genetically close, having both descended from the velociraptor, or something like that.), barbecued pork (at least that's what I'm calling it), thin strings of fried potatoes ("potato made better" as Jordan said), and various other rices and noodles. It was a delicious night, and I'll admit we splurged a little, spending a whopping $5 US per person. Mom, Dad- I'm sorry. I'll try mightily to curb my rampant spending.

I'm not sure I see the connection.

After dinner we went to a Karaoke club! These things are big deals here- four floors with a hundred rooms at least, each containing a lounge area and a stage and a massive TV, not to mention a song library with just about everything you'd want (they didn't have Meatloaf. I guess they'd do anything else for their customers, but they won't do that.)

We spent about three hours singing everything from the Beatles to Aladdin, and my throat still hurts today. I apologize to Mr. Hornady for not even attempting to sing in a healthy way.

But come on, doesn't it look fun?
From left to right: Junta, Jordan, Glenn, Tram, Jenn

Roommate Bonding

I'm sure that there are videos of me singing "Billie Jean" floating out there somewhere. I didn't get any on my camera, though.

Today has been a relaxing laundry/blog/homework day, with the homework, of course, coming last. We went to the Medicine House with Tram and Jenn for lunch and ordered the best dessert that I've had so far in China. It's so easy you could even do it at home! Here's what you need:

One Banana (or two)
One pot full of molten sugar (or two)

Heat banana(s), pour pot of molten sugar onto bananas. Serve with ice cold water to harden into crunchy candy shell around very hot banana(s). Eat until you go into sugar-shock. Stop.