The headmaster took us all out for dinner which was the standard giant lazy susan meal, full of all sorts of different and strange foods. The first odd one was century eggs, which tasted like regular eggs, but weirder. there were also whole prawns, one of Miles's favorite foods here, some totally awesome squid, mussels, whole fish, and the standard soups with vegetables and so many unidentifiable and bony parts of some animal that you should just kind of try to stay away from the meat all together (I picked out a sheep vertebrae from one bowl last night). Oh, and I also go to continue my goal of having at least one strange food per lazy susan meal by eating cicada, whch was just kinda crunchy and bland. Oh well, now I know what that tastes like.
Following dinner, we decided to go to the only youth hostel in Qufu, which turned out to be a great idea, well, at least until The Incident. The place is about a mile from here, and we had no idea exactly where it is, so we decided to get cabs and go. The thing is, it's apparently impossible to get a cab on a Saturday, even though they're everywhere. After a mile of walking and about 30 full cabs had passed us by, we decided to say screw it, and all piled into Tuk Tuks, which turned out to be a great idea, as it makes you feel like kind of a king touring the streets. We arrived at the hostel to an empty bar, and got drinks. (Quick note: drinks are even cheaper here than Beijing, something I didn't think was possible. I could get Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks for 15 yuan, which is completely insane.) Soon, a few Brits that were touring China for a month showed up, and we made a few new friends, bonding over a game they called shithead, but I knew by another name: cheating bastard. Then, The Incident happened.
You see, there's one member of our group, Abbie, who can go from zero to drunk faster than anyone I've ever met, Nick Alonzi included. Within an hour of us being there, she was already screaming drunk, and somewhere over the course of the night, she decided to make an Irish exit. When we discovered she was missing, everyone freaked out. Well, not everyone. Miles and I were in a conversation with Reyse and Ben, two of the Brits, and didn't get the memo until we realized everyone was somewhere else. Several search parties were sent out, and all of them came back with no sign of her. When Niona called and said she was back at the night, it was decided that we were done for the night, and everyone went home. Well, not everyone. Just before the signal to go was given, Alejandra, Paja and I had bought another round, so we quickly finished them while I talked in surprisingly passable German to a couple of Dutch guys at the bar. And here I was thinking my German minor would do me no good in China. We finally got back around 12:30, and went to bed.
This morning we got to sleep in, which was an opportunity welcomed by all, ate a late breakfast, and were taken to a place that I've taken to calling Cofuciusland, a place where education about Confucius and fun meet. It was really kind of an odd place, there was an It's a Small World style ride through the story of Confucius, a bunch of mannequins related to the old scholar, arranged to show things that we couldn't understand, and a big, multilevel maze in a geodesic dome, which was supposed to represent math in some way, although I'm not really sure how. I got some great photos of it, and learned very little. Other than that, we got a visit from the DDT man this morning, or at least we think it was DDT. Some guy in a reverse, diesel powered leafblower came through when I was in the shower and covered everything with some sort of chemical, including all of the bathrooms, the room where we dry our laundry, and the entirety of the hallway. He tried to spray it all over our room, too, but Miles managed to stop him. Thank god. We know what he was spraying is bad for us, because he was dressed in pseudo-hazmat gear, so I'm not exactly sure why he was allowed to do it. Oh well, it's China.
-Cooper
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