Tuesday night was our official welcome banquet in Hefei. There was much speculation during the day on who would be the host and, accordingly, the required level of VLL consumption. Things were looking good as the early reports were suggesting Mr G as host --- only mildly pushy on the VLL.
Earlier in the day, we encountered an example of the serious bare belly or 'bang ye' problem highlighted by my lovely and well-read wife (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/21/world/la-fg-china-bellies-20100821)
The banquet that night was held at a very beautiful restaurant located in the middle of a lake right in the center of town. The dining room was on the second level with windows to the lake (shrouded in drapes) and a large diorama depicting an enhanced view.
Mr G was, in fact, the official host --- until Mr B walked in shortly after the start. Mr B was fresh from another banquet and ready for action. He quickly dismissed of toasting with the tiny toasting cups and asked us all to raise the filling beaker instead. As you might expect our hopes were dashed at that point.
The weird dish of the evening was another soup --- this time fish lip soup. As you might imagine the cooked lip involved a bit of cartilage and some very soft fleshy matter --- not an appealing texture but the flavor wasn't bad.
One of my colleagues, enlisted the server to start filling her beaker with water --- probably a wise move but it put her at a disadvantage for the next phase of the evening: karaoke!
This was our second round of karaoke in Hefei (see April highlights from Trip 1). This round was at another karaoke place as equally elaborate as the first.
Mr G, who is an outstanding singer, was there and fortunately he brought his English speaking son who was home from college in the UK. That gave us another person to put on stage for the English songs (Mandy, Lady, Santa Claus is Coming to Town etc).
The departure, as always, required a guide --- did we take the elevator up or down to get into this maze?
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