Extravagant Eating and Driving Habits ...

The Eating

So far, have gone to two ridiculously extravagant dinners ...
My first weekend, a friend of the family invited us all to a dinner at the restaurant he owns. It was the epitome of Chinese Extravagant Eating/Social Gathering ... dish after dish of delicacies, waitresses tending to your every need, endless desserts, all around a giant round table with a spinning glass tabletop for easy food-passing. All in a huge private dining room (the entire fourth floor of the restaurant), outside of which there was a large sitting area with sofas and a glass floor overlooking a big pool/tank of deadly sharks.

I sat next to the 5-time China Champion/4-time World Champion/Bronze medalist at Sydney Olympics female fencer. We seated 20 at the table. I had, among other things, flaming red lobster, sushi, kobe beef, and 3 desserts. Typically Chinese.


we were all afraid the glass would break:



The Driving

Chinese people love Audis. I don’t know why but the street is riddled with them. Literally, the first day I was there walking down one block, 5 Audis passed me, and as we drove by an intersection, literally driving from 10 ft. before the light to 10 ft. after the light (during a green light) I counted 6 Audis at the intersection.

Most people get around by foot, bus, or taxis. A small percentage own personal cars, but the driving gets kind of crazy ...

Here's an excerpt from an email from my little sister (who also just arrived in China, but another city):
people here drive like crazy... like... haha it's really funny. they don't follow the rules at all and now i understand where there's an "Asians are bad drivers" stereotype. The red lights don't really do anything, but moreso, people don't follow the lanes AT ALL. people are driving on top of the lines for like ... most of the car ride, and sometimes where there are 2 lanes on a street, there are actually 3 cars next to each other. and then people honk like they're in NYC. it's crazy, but pretty amusing. and what's even better is we were in a taxi going down a one-way/one and one half-lane street that was crowded by pedestrians/bikers not to mention the lane of parked cars, and the taxi driver was driving at like 25 mph. I had no idea a cheap taxi car could brake/accelerate that quickly.
... the best part is my first day here, driving to the hotel, the taxi driver made a u-turn from the far right lane. he did that and i was like "......... !!!!?!?!? did you really just do that..??"

more random musings from my sister:

guys...

i just ate YELLOW watermelon.

i took a picture.

We went to Xin Jie Kou today, and WOW it's a lot cheaper than Pu Dong. AND hahaha i was looking at jeans. and there was one with the word "JENAS" on the back pocket...........

and every time i walk into the street, i feel like i'm gonna get run over :[