A Very Merry Un-Birthday to You!!

Today is a very special day in Rochester.... it's the birthday of the most incredible girl I know!! So for all of you out there, please join me in singing Happy Birthday to Miss Hazel who turns 21 today!! haha. Oh, and for most of you will know this - let's do it as every Cyclone knows the best way to celebrate a birthday in Ames is as follows:

(*CLAP* *CLAP* *CLAP* *CLAP*)

Happy Happy Birthday, On this your special day!

Happy Happy Birthday, Is what we're here to say (HEY!)

Happy Happy Birthday, May all your dreams come true....

Happy Happy Birthday, From Hickory Park to you! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Also means you get a free sundae and the icecream at Hickory Park which is 2nd to none!!!! And the best breaded Cheese curds ever...... and Chili Dog. That's all you need there. Chili Dog, Curds, and the Snickers Sundae..... dang, haven't eaten there in a long while. I'm getting hungry now.

Now that that's over.... LET'S GO TO THE CHINA STORIES!!!!

You're never going to believe this. Thankfully we have phones with cameras here to prove it.....

We decided that Pizza Hut was in store for us for lunch! It sounded darn good so we took a bus to the edge of the Free Trade Zone, then hitched a ride with a cab to Pizza Hut. When we get the menu, it looks like this. Very little translation but I found a personal pan pizza with meat on it for me. Then Bev and Tony decided to split a bigger pizza but they wanted Pepperoni substituted for the chicken that was on it. So nobody working there speaks English. So after about a minute of pointing and drawing, she finally realizes what they wanted. "No chicken" consisted of us saying "ma-o" (no) then doing chicken noises. Then pointing to the word for pepperoni. One thing I've really noticed is how at all levels of the work force (white collared down to the part timers working at restaurants) really want to communicate with us and make sure we get what we want when ordering food, etc. This is 100% different than my experience in Southern France 4 years ago. We'll leave it at that for now.

As we're waiting for the pizza, there is a young lady at the salad bar. It's a "1 trip only" salad bar and this lady was making the most of it. I have never seen anything like this in my life but she spent the entire 45 minutes that we were there putting layer after layer after layer onto her salad. Layer of Cantaloupe (Dip Trip, Flip Fantasia), then a layer of bananas, then a layer of pineapple, then another layer of Cantaloupe (Groovy Groovy Jazzy Funky Pounce Bounce Dance), more bananas, pineapple, other stuff, Cantaloupe (Diddy Diddy Bop)....... We kept admiring her patience in putting this thing together and the waitresses were laughing at our reactions. We kept telling them to go knock it over so the girl would have to start all over!! Thankfully Tony took some pictures for our further amusement!

Yes, I do believe she had a Mullet but I wasn't sure how to say Mullet in Chinese.

I wasn't too terribly hungry last night so after a couple of drinks at the X-Ta-Sea bar (Sports bar - very much like a half-McMurphs with TVs, pool, and foosball) with the non-Chinese IBM crew, I stopped by Subway and took it home. Chinese lesson of the day.... Subway in China is not very good. They import all the ingredients, but still tasted nothing like it does back home. The guy was nice enough to give me my two stamps though for the sub. I told him that these are no good in the US anymore since Subway corporation turned evil (I blame Jarred) and he just stared at me probably thinking I wanted more now-worthless stamps.

Our driver stopped at a store for us this morning so we could get some treats and water and such. Everyone in the store could not stop staring at me - something I've grown used to. I guess it's like us in America if someone that is 7'5" comes walking through, you can't help but stare. This whole country is built too short though in my personal opinion. The chairs and desks are a little lower (about an inch or two), the couches are lower, the ceilings are lower, doorways, etc. I have a hard time fitting in a lot of things around here.

Few videos to share (non-Chinese related) that I have stumbled across while "working":

SNL did a very funny rap about the Chronicals of Narnia movie that came out. I can't stop laughing....

And here is the first Trailer for The DaVinci Code movie coming out next summer. I highly recommend to EVERYONE to read the book before the movie. I just think reading is always so much better to do first. By the way, I just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the 2nd film by Tim Burton was much much closer to the book. The biggest difference though was there is no mention of Willy Wonka's father and that whole weird thing that they threw in the movie. Now I'm going to read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator which I read as a kid and remembered it being kind of bizarre.

How many got the US3 reference in the salad part? I think "under 30" qualifies as getting that part. Kahn, you're past the cutoff so you're the deciding factor!! How 'bout a big hand now?