Interesting Trip (Part II)

Ok, I'm back.  And let me tell you, it was interesting.  Or not at all as interesting as I led on, I still haven't decided.  Most interesting part: the location.  Guess.  You never will, ok, it was at a hotel at a government sponsored experimental agriculture compound.  The place where they develop super-rice so that a billion Chinese can still eat a bowl of rice every meal every day, where pumpkins do not come in sizes smaller than godzilla eggs, and the only insect repellent you need is the mosquito-eating tube plants that hang on the walls.
Otherwise, pretty standard Chinese get away.
We had a banquet, and...  No go back.  I need to explain "banquet" to my non-China readers.  Yes indeed it does mean food.  Lots of delicious food, lots of really chinese-y food -- which means that the more it looks like the original animal the better -- lots of strange foods I've never seen.  Again, I promise to start adding food blogs soon.  BUT the funnier thing about this banquets is that everyone gets drunk.  Especially the men.  Essentially it comes down to a show of masculinity, because "cheers" don't work here the way they do in the US.  I've explained baijiu ("bye-joe") before, yes?  Well it is the most potent, vial liquor that has ever crossed my path and I refuse to touch the stuff.  But the men here LOVE it.  So they go around, toasting everyone and everything they can think of, and if you do not drink (the entire shot of baijiu, I might add) and toast back, then you are not cool.  It's like a socially acceptable frat party of peer pressure.  Some of ladies like to toast with wine and beer and things, which I'll participate it, but even then you end up drinking more than you might wish.  Really, it's amazing.  I have no idea how they do it.  Some of the male foreign teachers I've talked are dying because they don't have the "oh I'm a dainty female I couldn't possibly" excuse to not toast.  This is the ONE, I repeat ONE, time it is better to be female here.
Long story short, banquet happened, every male teacher was drunk, many females too.  And so we head to KTV!!  Because that's what you do at every possible moment.  I cannot overemphasize how often karaoke happens here.  It was fun, got to hear all the colleagues belting their hearts out to sad, slow Chinese songs (because the Chinese LOVE sad slow Chinese songs as much as they love cheers-ing baijiu).  The evening took a turn for the worse when the colleagues decided they would like to hear the foreign teacher sing, and chose a sad, slow English song for the English teacher.  Oh yes boys and girls, I got to make an awful, awful attempt at Celine Deon for the entire school.  And if that wasn't bad enough, an encore rendition of Simon and Garfunkel.  And then, no it's not over yet, as the night went on I was wrangled into butchering the Beatles, Britney Spears, and Michael Jackson.  My ancestors are still turning in their graves from shame.  It was not pretty.
Next morning we went on a walk of the facilities and saw all the produce.  It reminded me of walking around Hawaii, because that's the only other place I've been with these kind of plants.  There was a dragon fruit grove, and I ate my first star fruits.  It was relaxing and nice wanderings.  Like I said, outside of the locations, not "exciting" per se.  But enjoyable nonetheless, and I got free food, drinks, and entertainments.  All in all, good trip.

 Starfruits, and asian posing with my colleagues

I will get more group pictures from other teachers on Monday, so I'll post more then.