What a night!!

OK, so Mr. Wu again invited everyone out for dinner. Tonight he was welcoming all of the teaching staff, most of whom arrived yesterday. We went to his favorite restaurant in Dalian City. We all dressed up, and the restaurant was pretty fancy (Did I mention that my next few years of existence are going to be incredibly luxurious??!!) Anyway, It was a lovely dinner. I ate escargot (snails) right out of the shells. And you know what? They tasted delicious. Pretty soon, three other teachers had tried them too. I also had some octopus and some specially prepared clams (which I never eat shellfish). So I was feeling brave and open to new things and having lovely time. The restaurant was bedecked with blue lights twinkling on all these trees, and there was a string quartet playing right next to us. The whole thing felt surreal. It is the fanciest restaurant I have ever eaten at.

So then the string quartet finished and a man and woman got on stage and began singing famous songs in english and impersonating famous voices. They were quite good at sounding like elvis, Patty Cline, Nora Jones, etc... We kept clapping at the end of each number, but were the only table in the room applauding. So after a few minutes the performers came to our table and asked if we would make a request. Brian requested Country Roads, because he knew that they knew the song from his previous visit to the restaurant. Then the performers asked for someone at the table to get up and sing it with them. Obviously no one did. So he came down off stage and tried to get Brian to sing, but he wouldn't. Then the performer pushed the mic at me, so I started to sing the song. I felt silly sitting in front of my plate with food on it singing, so I stood up. I have no idea why I was compelled to stand up and sing, I felt ridiculous. But I went for it, simultaneously feeling mortified by my actions, and was pressured into singing the rest of the song!

The rest of the night was dreamy. We walked around a part of Dalian that was all lit up, clean and spacious and very modern. I have put some pictures up of the night. It was magical. However, my last story of the evening resides with a bad language blunder upon our return to the hotel.

Sidney wanted to try to walk up the stairs to our rooms on the 12th floor. So we went down the side hall to the stairs entry and were stopped by an employee (manager?) who asked us if we were looking for a toilet. We said no the stairs, and he said he would show us where the elevator was. We explained that we wanted to walk up, and he was looking at us very quizzically, as though he could not understand. I thought the best explaination would be a little humor. So I said in my best mandarin, "Ni Fung Le", or "I am crazy", trying to justify our desire to climb the stairs when the elevator was right there. The man looked at me strangely and walked away. Well I got halfway up before I realized my mortifying error. I had said "Ni" meaning "you" instead of "Woh" meaning "I". So the man tried to help us, and I said politely, "You are crazy." So tomorrow, I am going to try to find him (I hope I recognize him) and apologize profusely- If I can find the appropriate words!

Until then, I will hide out in the safety of my room and regroup for a tomorrow free of ridiculous stunts...