Grand Opening

Grand Opening Fan Fair

Ok so this is a common sight in China when a new business has just opened.....accompanied by the fireworks for good luck. Isaac and I had just spent the morning relentlessly trying to hail a taxi to take us to the six harmonies pagoda we wanted to check out. After we checked out the pagoda we headed in the direction of home. I said to Isaac let's just walk....it can't be more than an hr......turns out it was more like 2! lol. We didn't mind because the reward in the end was stopping to eat at one of our favorite restaurants called Grandma's Kitchen...serves traditional Chinese food but has an English name. Finally we make it to the restaurant to find out that it is closed for renovation! So I tell Isaac there is a restaurant by our house that has a menu with some pictures so at least we can point out what we  want.....it's kind of a fast food Chinese style. So there is where we go! I order some chicken and rice, and Isaac orders pork and rice.....my chicken looks like brain, not much meat at all but alot of other things I have never seen in chicken before. Isaac's pork is a fuchsia pink color and taste purfumey. Anyway we don't each much of anything and end up heading home. Around 7:00pm I said to Isaac, do you want to go check out that new restaurant around the corner? We would have stopped there before the other crappy place, but we didn't know it was open.So off we head to check it out. We are greeted at the door by about 4 people...we tell them we are a party of 2. In the lobby there are about 4 tables filled with people chatting and smoking.....They smoke everywhere here by the way! Even when there is no smoking signs! We are not sure if it is in fact a restaurant, but it looks like one and we tell them we want to eat. The girl leads us up stairs and is saying in English, ok ok this way please, this way. We get upstairs to be lead through a long corridor with a whole bunch of doors.....we are thinking what the heck is this.?She shows us to our room and as we go inside we realize we are in a SPA! The room has massage tables.....lmao. Now we need to explain that we want food and not a rub and tug! The girl keeps saying you speak Chinese? you speak Chinese?.....well if I did girlfriend I wouldn't be standing in a massage parlor looking for dinner!  So needless to say we left hungry, Isaac way more embarrassed than I, as they laughed at us. As you age that kind of stuff doesn't embarrass you..... I don't know those people and I will likely never see them again in a city of 8 million!  Ok I kinda stand out since I'm the one with the "round eyes". Look at the picture it looked like the name of a restaurant to me! lol. That's what happens when you don't speak the language..... I know we like to bitch about foreigners in our country who can't speak English but you know, I am seeing what like is like as an adult when you are put into that situation. Maybe they are saying the same thing about us, why don't you go back to your own country round eyes and learn some Chinese if you wanna live here. Some of those people come to our country to make a better life for their family's.....and sometimes come with nothing! I have taken a new appreciation for people who move half way across the world, away from what they are so comfortable with, to a strange country and culture. A lot of our own fellow" country men"...( was that politically correct?) Are to lazy ,or to good ,to endure some of the things that people that come over from other countries do. Ok I am wandering into a whole other topic of conversation.....so here is where I will END! lol