May 29th: Dinner and Magic

Ron organized a fun Saturday night out for a big crowd of us--enough people to take up two tables; I think there were sixteen of us. 

Michael, a friend of theirs, had taken them to a restaurant once before with a live show during the meal, so Ron had him help organize a group outing there.  In the first picture are, from left to right, May, Shan Shan, Mr. Wang, Hollis, Spring, Evelyn, and Ron, with Michael in the front. 

I was at the second table, along with (from left to right), Tabby, Casey, Stephanie, Lee, Brian, Lindsay, and Madison.  The last three were here from ACU for a month.  We had several interesting dishes I hadn't had before, including a roast duck (which we didn't each all that much of,  because it wasn't carved very well and therefore hard to eat with chopsticks; even the Chinese people at the table thought it weird and wondered how they expected someone to eat that with chopsticks), a type of Chinese spaghetti that was quite good, cabbage, and a type of beef that tasted almost barbecued.  Of course, my favorite thing was the eggplant.  There was also a bit of what the Chinese keep telling me is "white carrot." I'm still trying to figure out if that's something we have in the states, because it's wonderful.  Now, white carrots do exist; however, I'm wondering if it's really turnips, because the texture isn't quite like a carrot.  I saw something clearly labeled "turnip" at the store the other day; I'm going to ask some of the people who've told me that those are white carrots if this is the thing they were referring to. 

After we ate, we enjoyed a kitschy little "magic" show.  First, the man came out and did various feats with sawhorses, all while keeping a little burning lamp steady on his bald head.  Then he came back out in an elaborate costume, wearing a mask and waving a fan as he danced.  Every time he stomped his foot and cracked his fan, his mask would change.  We figured there was some sort of contraption where he was knocking them up into his hat.  I tried to post a video on here, but that seems to be beyond the reach of my internet connection tonight.  So, you'll have to check that out on flickr once I get caught up over there.