Yichang...Who Knew There was Something to do Here

July 19th, 2008- Arrive Yichang. Tango Bar Anyone?

We arrived pretty early into Yichang and set off for the hotel. Dragon had a coach (bus) that met us outside the train station and took us to "our" hotel. After about 20 minutes in the lobby and after a couple of us went up to some rooms, we were informed that we were in the wrong hotel. We then had to cab it down the road to the right one. Meanwhile we lost the English couple Yasmeen and Soujbie because their cab took them to the wrong hotel. They eventually resurfaced and we checked in. We had lunch at the hotel and then went off on our "orientation" tour which didn't consist of much because the town didn't have much at all to do. It was really just a stopping point before our Yangtze River cruise. We got to tour our first Chinese supermarket which was quite strange. There was no air conditioning so it started to get muggy real quick. The meat wasn't really refrigerated and it just smelled weird. They also don't really refrigerate any of their dairy products here either. The yoghurt is pretty warm even when you get it right out of their "fridge."And we headed back to the hotel.

We gathered downstairs for dinner at around 7. Dragon took us to this restaurant down the street from the hotel which he described as "cheap." So basically cheap meant gross. It was a banquet lunch where we shared the dishes and I only ended up eating like 6 potatoes because I couldn't really stomach the other stuff. Someone in America told me before I left that in China they treat their beef in formaldehyde to make it tender. So anytime we are eating beef I'm wondering about the formaldehyde thing and I quickly start losing my appetite. I'm not a frog, I'm not looking to be preserved. On the way out we walked back downstairs and had to go through the main dining hall where everyone was staring at us and this waiter/cook was walking with a live fish in his hand he just pulled out of the tank and I kinda shrieked because you could still see its gills moving. The Chinese have really taken the term fresh catch to heart.

The group wanted to hit the town. We first tried the hotel bar which was a let down because they had a spending minimum and not really any alcohol. So we headed to a place Dragon led us to. But first, Dragon stopped for a snack of duck necks at a local shop. He was then carrying them in a little plastic bag with him to the bar we ended up at called the Tango Bar. I can honestly say I've never seen anyone eat duck necks in a dance club before and then I came to China. We had to go through a metal detector which went off every time someone went through but the staff didn't do anything so it was kind of confusing. Maybe they saw a 50 Cent video and thought it would be a cute accessory to the decor because it didn't really seem to serve much of a purpose otherwise. They led us to a booth which was kinda like table service at an American bar. It was a little crazy because we were the only foreigners in there and the club was packed full of Chinese people dancing in their random style. They kind of just swayed side to side with the music. The music was a compilation of Chinese remixes of popular songs with mismatched videos being played on the TVs throughout the room. Then at separate times a guy and a girl would get on a platform and sing along to a track and they were actually quite impressive. The guy sang a remix of Backstreet Boys which was definitely a crowd favorite. Definitely a flash back to the popular songs of high school. Dragon sure danced his heart out. It was definitely a top night. The bar closed at midnight though so it was kind of an early night.