The day started very early as the train ride was at 6:07 am. I woke up at 4:00 am and got dressed for the occasion. I also tried on the previously purchased anti-perspirant. I had a nice black striped CK dress shirt, some Ralph Lauren Khakis, and black dress shoes. Unfortunately, it was raining outside but my uncle managed to hail a taxi for my cousin and I and we got to the train station about an hour before the scheduled departure. The train we rode was the super fast magnetic rail train that runs between Nanjing and Shanghai. A one-way trip only took about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Pineapple's parents greeted us at the train station and we were off!
We first went to get some breakfast at the company recreation center. This place was awesome with courts for just about any racket sport, pool, hotel, etc. We had some light conversation during breakfast and I learned of the day's plans: A visit to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial followed by lunch on Hunan Street, then freeform.
I had visited the Sun Yat-sen Memorial before in 2001 as part of a tourist group and remembered lots of stairs. This time, the visit rekindled the fondness I had for those 294 stairs. The weather was super awesome and the temperature was cool, but climbing the stairs briskly while wearing dress shoes and a dress shirt still caused me to sweat like crazy. But Velius, didn't you wear that fancy Chinese anti-perspirant? Yes, but it doesn't work at all, even though I had a triple application. However, the scenery more than made up for the loss of electrolytes as it was absolutely stunning. From atop the Mausoleum, you could almost see the entire city of Nanjing. There was also this awesome floral placement with individual potted flowers that shaped into the logo for the 2008 Olympics.
We also visited an amphitheater designed with spectacular natural acoustics.
There was a live concert going on and there were hundreds of doves on the grounds as well as various people that were being eaten by the doves. These doves were super aggressive and flocked to anyone with food. They even flew on top of people's head and arms for better shots at the food from above.
The entire time, Pineapple's parents and I were discussing many different topics like my job, my family, the hurricane in Houston, and many inquiries about how Princess Pineapple was doing.
After the Sun Yat-sen Memorial, we went to Hunan road and had lunch at Shi Zi Tou (Lion's head). This restaurant chain purportedly has been around since the Song Dynasty which is roughly about 1000 years. At the restaurant, I met Pineapple's uncle and aunt. The food was excellent with the best food being the signature Lion's Head dish. We talked a lot more in detail during lunch and the conversation was good. I had some difficulties expressing myself in Chinese as sometimes, I just couldn't think of the proper phrases fast enough. I have to definitely work on that in the future.
After lunch, Pineapple's parents really wanted to show us around some more, but the morning's activites were pretty tiring so we suggested they take a rest and meet up with us at the train station later on. My cousin and I decided to spent the remaining time touring Xuanwu Lake. The lake was huge with many things to see so my cousin suggested that we should ride one of those two-person bikes that were available for rent. This turned out to be a horrible mistake as the bike we got sucked.
It was totally rusted over and besides the bell, everything else on the bike made sounds. Luckily this benefited in that it was very hard to hit any pedestrians because they could hear our coming from a mile away and make preparations to avoid us. This was a good thing because the steering was also crooked on the bike and the best we could do was the zigzag the bike around. After 15 minutes of pedaling, my legs were about to fall off because the chain and pedals were so rusted that it felt like we were pedaling in quicksand. We finally stopped at a bird sanctuary to watch more birds attacking humans for food.
Coming out of the bird sanctuary, we decided to just ditch the bike and walk on foot.
After the tour of the lake, we headed back to the train station to meet Pineapple's parents again. They gave me stuff to take back to Pineapple and gifts to give to my relatives in Shanghai. Overall, Pineapple's parents were super nice and often times went out of their way to make sure my visit was enjoyable. I sincerely hope that I was able to put forth a good first impression.
The train ride back was uneventful and Pineapple's friend's brother picked us up at the train station. He also gave me some stuff to take back to his sister. The day was tiring as we got back home at around 10 pm. It was just in time to watch Walden defeat O'Sullivan 10-8 in the Shanghai Masters snooker tournament.
4 comments:
lol. are you gonna end all your posts with snooker game updates? =P
congratulations on surviving "meet the parents" velius edition. Looks like everything went well :). I've been to all the places you've been to, except this lions head restaurant hmm. must put it on the list!
How come you are never in any of these pictures? For all I know, you are actually still in Houston, and sent the Dynegy voodoo doll in your stead to meet PP's parents.
Haha voodoo doll! How exactly is snooker different than pool/billiards?
Grats on surviving meeting the parents =D.
Well, snooker is pretty popular here and my uncle likes to watch it, hence I watch a lot of it. In regards to Dynegy Voodoo Doll, Ixnay on the YnegyVoodooDollDay.
Post a Comment