* A note before you read... I have posted these in the wrong order... so scroll down the the bottom most recent entry and then go up if you prefer continuation in your blog reading?!

Paula visit: Part two

I think that Paula will testify that if you do not like Chinese food then you are likely to be hungry during your visit to Shenzhen! Hk has plenty of variations, from trad Chinese, Japanese, western etc so that was ok. However, in Sz its chicken feet all the way (or octopus, as I am eating in the picture!) and Im not exactly Gordon Ramsey so I didnt have a lot to offer in the way of home cooking (did try some disastrous egg fried rice once!). Managed to make up for it (I think) by providing plenty of drunkenness..
Memorable nights out (or not depending on how you look at it after the vast amounts of wine drunk) include:

1. Lebonese (older) business men: Taleb & Ahmed who asked to join us (everyone wanted to join us in Coco Park, Sz.. we felt like celebrities!) they turned out to be surprisingly good fun, esp since they could not pronounce our names and we were called Paola-villa & tina de la tanya. They complained about the Chinese food also so I informed them that there was a steak restaurant nearby and I could take them there if they paid for dinner = one free dinner for us !

2. Crazy chinese men.. (also Coco Park) ended up being a big group of us with lots of Chinese drinking games and broken English / Chinese, and outrageous statements in English being said that they must have been told a meddlesome westerner in the past, I sincerely hope they didn’t understand what they said!

3. A local Chinese guy who was sweet, and asked to join us for the chance to improve his English… but claimed he had lived in the states for 9years, that must have been either exclusively in Chinatown or else was completely lying!

4. Karaoke in Causeway Bay … at one point, having had a few drinkys of whiskey we decided to grab a spare mic and sing our own (made up tune) over the top of the song playing hmm, didn’t go down to well, the mic was taken off of us and we got a disapproving stare along the lines of ‘if you cannot participate properly, do not participate at all’ ooooooh Lesson learnt: karaoke in Asia is not the same as in the Uk, where everyone drunkenly shouts rubbish and thinks that they are a superstar!

On the subject of music I would like to add that since I only have Chinese cable in my apartment (jeez not really doing a good job of selling Sz as a place to visit am I?!), we ended up watching a LOT of Asian MTV. I think in that whole two weeks we only saw one or possibly if I stretch the parameters, two happy songs. The rest were all weepy sad love songs, I feel we need to inject a touch of Lionel Richie esque dancing on the ceiling tunage!