4/17/2009 Three Peanut Pride and the Strawberry Pickers

Today we got to meet some of Claire's childhood friends. They chatted for quite some time before we decided to go to lunch at a nice local restaurant. Claire's friends did all the ordering. The food they brought was colorful and interesting, and SPICY. I was coughing after trying the octopus.

I liked the greens, beans, soup, rice, and peanuts the best. Can you pick up three peanuts with chopsticks? Unfortunately, my wife showed me she had this same great peanut talent, but I decided that one three-peanut picture was plenty.

Most interesting was the hot drink made from corn....who could have imagined?

The kids fared well with Rebecca adventuring into the spicy octopus. It is time for me to admit something that I am just now realizing about myself. Well, my cuisine preferences are sort of low brow. The meal we just had was a special feast, but instead of really enjoying this kind of meal, I was wishing I had the fried noodles from yesterday, which cost about 50 cents US. I should have realized this before since I often request grits for supper and think I am splurging when I add a frosty to my Wendy's double stack. Anyway....the kids may have inherited this same trait from me, because what most excited them were the watermelon slices. Can anyone spell “Mississippians”? The most animated event involved who was going to pay the bill. If I did not know better I would have thought there was going to be a fight, but that is how the Chinese do it sometimes. Needless to say I stayed out of that skirmish in order to keep my tightwad image unscathed. As we left the restaurant, I shot some of the local color, literally.

Later that afternoon Wu Xin and Xiao Ping took us to the strawberry patch. You had to pay for the strawberries you picked, but you also could eat as you picked.

The girls left with strawberry juice stains on their hands, fingers, and shirts.

They had a great time.

Next, we went to Xian Nu Lake to watch the boats. The boats were very different from my cousins' fishing boats.

We chatted with some sport fishermen on one boat about to go out to fish for the night. Claire asked one of them if they camped at night. He said of course not....we fish all night, but just to be safe we tie ourselves to the boat in case we doze off. Now that's a real fisherman....no Motel 6 for them.

Of course the night ended with eating more strawberries. The girls just could not get enough of them.