Nize does China - part II

After the nice and tidy first entry it's time to get down and dirty with what really happened in China. Why did the ~10 minute bus ride from the restaurant to the bar take over 1 hour, what's Stefano's (aka George aka Obama aka the only black guy in Changsha) real name, why does the rice always arrive at the table after we've mostly eaten already and how did arx and deva stumble upon a spa with shady services in the middle of the night after we all left the club. These are some of the questions which may be left unanswered even after reading our blogs but hopefully you get at least something out of em.

So on Friday afternoon we stepped on the plane and started our epic journey towards China. The flight to Beijing went pretty ok for myself. Watched a couple of movies from the awesome tiny personal screens with the worst quality of sound I've ever had  to experience. Then a few hours of waiting at the airport for our connecting flight to the small city of Changsha. Small meaning a population of only 6M. As we boarded our flight to Changsha the grand scheme of things to come started slowly opening in my mind, meaning we were soon going to be pretty much the only western people around. Yes the attention and all the staring we got was a bit overwhelming at first.

 

 

 At Changsha we were greeted by a few of our hosts who directed us to their cars and drove us to the hotel. Not much to say about the ride except that it was probably the craziest shit I've ever witnessed in traffic. People going past eachother from where ever they could, who cares about lanes anyway just squeeze through where you can. Nevertheless we survived the race and ended up at our destination. After the check-in we even had luxurous 1 hour time to rest before the official dinner.

The dinner itself was pretty nice, the food was delicious and the battling with chopsticks amused everyone. Some of us had secretly been practising eating with them but I was a true virgin and failed probably the most. Naturally all proper feasts include a hefty amount of toasts so by the end of the meal the level of friendliness had risen quite a lot.

 

After chatting with other players, some more toasting and a lot of pictures taken we were ready to get moving again. The organizers took us a few blocks away to see a traditional Chinese theatre show. We had almost front row seats and they had even paid to show a greeting for us at the big screen in the middle of the show with spotlights on top of us! The show was pretty energetic with a lot dancing and acrobatics at first but later took a turn to a more stand-up setting. Unfortunately as we didn't really understand Chinese and were dead tired already because of the long travel behind us we missed most of the stuff. Good thing our hosts kinda noticed this aswell and we didn't stay there til the very end of the show. It was still a nice experience after all.

We got back to the hotel and I crashed on the bed immediately for a looooong and pleasant sleep of awesomeness.