Day 14

If there is one thing I do exceptionally well, it's sleep, so if you were expecting me to start today's blog by telling you that we made it to the bus station in time to go to the water village, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. Truth be told, I woke up closer to the time the bus would have been bringing the tourists back from their day trip.

Daley and I spent most of the day in the common room, reading up on things to do in Xi'an and Beijing, updating our blogs and finding out what on Earth has been going on back home since we left.

In the early evening, Tom, Daley and I went down to a local park, and played a bit of football. Despite the sun going in rapidly, we stayed out until we could barely see the ball or each other, but after two days teaching China how to drink (and how not to dance,) it felt good to run around and get some exercise.

On the way back the three of us stopped off for some dinner at a local restaurant. We followed the waiter's recommendations (never do this, when there is a language barrier) and ordered dumplings, sticky chicken, rice and chicken soup, which was supposedly a local delicacy. When the food arrived at the table, conversation stopped immediately and we all tucked in. The dumplings were excellent, the sticky chicken was so sweet that it could have passed for a dessert and then...the soup.

Before I left for China I remember Dad joking that we would be getting bowls of soup with heads, feet and all sorts floating in it. I believed him but just didn't think it would happen to us. (I think you can probably guess where this is going.) Cockily, I picked up the ladle and japed "ha, I bet the crazy b******s have put the head in there or something!" Sure enough as I took one big swoop and lifted the ladle, there was an entire head and neck staring back at me. You know, I didn't really feel like eating after that. Needless to say the soup went more or less untouched. Before we left, we flicked through the menu to find out what the soup was. Turns out we had ordered 'Tea and pea soup with old chicken.' Old chicken? How is that a selling point?

Allow me, if you will, to put forward the following scenario:

Customer: "Excuse me, waiter."
Waiter: "Yes, sir?"
Customer: "Do you have any of that old chicken soup?"
Waiter: "We certainly do, sir. Today's chickens have been sitting out the back for a good 18 days."
Customer: "Oh, I'm afraid that just won't do. Do you have anything older? Perhaps one that had been kicked around by children or left at the road side for a couple of weeks before you picked it up?"
Waiter: "I'm afraid not, sir. However, we do try to ensure that our old chickens are of the highest quality and left in unrefrigerated conditions wherever possible."
Customer (to guest): "...shall we try another restaurant?"

I hope to God something got lost in translation...