Last Day in China

Today was spicy food day here in China. After some good Indian/Thai/Taiwanese food for lunch (a formal meal, not a buffet like you're thinking), we had some Hunan food tonight that was simply superb! I can now speak two words in Hunan dialect (you and me.... they both sound like "mmmmmmmmm" in a grunt like tone) but more than anything I have learned to enjoy the peppers they use there. My sinuses are very clear tonight!

Red Wings take the Cup in 6 games. A spectacular finish to a great season of Hockey! And I was here in Taiwan (and China) unable to watch any of it:( I did get the official word that they won earlier today from Sarah in an instant message who used her advanced expertise of hockey to tell me "The Red team just won". That was more than enough to let me know the good news.

Couple of China stories:
The traffic here is absolutely crazy (and very dangerous). Our van driver (hired by IBM and drives the IBM team from home/hotel to office daily) is actually a pretty smart driver but is very aggressive. There was a bicyclist in the middle of the right lane that we were trying to use to exit the 4 lane busy street (not quite a highway). Well since he wouldn't let us around him, we were stuck (honking all the while) waiting... then he cuts us off.... on a bike!!! As he's cutting us off, we brake, and he turns to look at us - not realizing the cars in the left hand lane have stopped quickly due to a car trying to do a U-turn in the middle of traffic. So of course the bicyclist runs SMACK INTO the back of the car in the left lane. We're talking face smacking against the back window and bike falling out from under him! He got right back up while we were seeing if he was still alive. Started peddling again and resumed cutting cars off. Hate to use the "he deserved it" comment here but it may be appropriate.

We also went for drinks the other night at an all you can eat/drink place for ~$20 US. Dinner was "ma ma hoo hoo" (which means "soso" in Chinese... or literally "horse horse tiger tiger".... I'm 100% serious because it's my favorite phrase so far). Well the drinks were flowing for a couple of hours to make sure we got our money's worth. My peer manager from Raleigh who is on assignment in China decided to order another round of beers for the FOUR of us drinking beer (two were drinking a shit ton of sake). At this point in the story I need to understand the very very slight difference between the words "four" and "ten" in Mandarine. George ordered them despite me thinking he said the word poorly. 3 minutes later she returns with 10 BEERS! Good thing they were free.... they did not go to waste at all. In fact we had another couple of rounds after that!

Some China pictures have been uploaded (it's been a while, I know).

I go back home tomorrow morning. Dragon Boat Festival this weekend. I'll explain all about it soon!