Hot Pot!!

After surviving day 1, we were all looking forward to day 2. We got an extra half hour of sleep, and had to be in the lobby at 730 am. Today Paula was kicking the day off with ACS. She is an amazing lecturer, and pulled out all the stops to wow the Chinese audience. If I didn’t pay attention I missed some really interesting stuff that I didn’t know, so I can’t imagine what the physicians of 120 center were thinking. Dave followed with a very in depth 12 lead lecture, which was unfortunately too advanced for this class. There were murmurs that Paula and Dave both were too advanced for what this class was expecting. Too bad, because they were very informational and offered up ridiculous amounts of knowledge. This was a class of doctors, right? Yes, indeed it is, but this was not at all what they were expecting. So I was up next with stroke. Fantastic. I was just told to make it a bit more basic. So I decided to get interactive on them. Everything I did involved them. Apparently that was what they wanted. As an instructor trying to push knowledge on students, I paled in comparison to Dave and Paula. But I suppose I offered the right combo of info and interactiveness. Personally, I prefer the slap you in the face plethora that Dave and Paula offered. Just listening to them made me a much better instructor. All I did was ask questions and cover the basics!

We were easily able to catch up from day 1, and the day went great. The feedback from both students and the administrators at the 120 center were very positive. All of our interpreters were much improved from the previous day, and mine, Crystal, had said that they were threatened with firings if they didn’t get better! Yikes! Jesse stood in during stations and agreed that they were better. This was good, because they all looked like they were 12, and it is easy to feel bad for a 12 year old. So consider day 2 an even bigger success than day 1. It seemed like it would be hard to improve upon that.

After class, a couple of the doctors, the usual Dr. Ho and another I can’t remember the name of, wanted to take us out to dinner in Chengdu to a famous hot pot restaurant. Our first REAL hot pot experience! We had to navigate through downtown Chengdu to get there. We all made an odd observation on the way. Chinese drivers are MUCH better than Americans. The whole stigma of them being bad is just not true here. If everyone drove like this in the states, it would be a far better place. No road rage. They only use horns, and don’t get upset when someone uses it on them. Traffic, however much congested, just FLOWS. It is exquisite. I don’t know how they do it, what with wrong way drivers, intersections a control freaks worst nightmare, constant disregard for any vehicle around you and not giving an inch to anyone for any reason. It truly is a sight to behold. Back to hot pot. On the table is a burner, which they put a pot in the middle of. You can get it one of two ways, all hot, or half hot half not. I was close to the half hot one, but only ate out of the hot side. They bring all sorts of meats, fish and vegetables that you throw in the pot, wait for it to cook and then grab it with some chopsticks and eat it. I may have said this before, but disregard it previously. This is now the real truth. It is by far and away the hottest thing I have ever eaten. And I am not the only one saying that. What is really shocking is that it is delicious. Actually, not a surprise because almost everything here is. But wow is it hot. There are some pictures for you to see. So in this we tossed in the normal pork, lamb, veggies and fish. The fun stuff was eel, fish balls and squid. I especially liked the fish balls, but also thoroughly enjoyed the eel. The squid was a very hard texture for me to eat, but it did taste good. The whole event was right up there with the Peach Blossom dinner as best we’ve had. It can’t possibly get any better.