You Ate What?!?!

Ni Hao from Chongqing, I'm blogging today, Mary Claire is giving 'The Zhonger' his bath. We had a lot of fun today. Breakfast at the Harbour Plaza which for me includes fresh fruit, sushi, and a visit to the noodle station. The other 'Westnerners' at my table were having bacon and eggs I think (blah).... We spent the rest of the morning touring local shops and buying junk......I mean 'Chinese souviners'. Joann wanted to have lunch at the Marriott two blocks over, so off we went. The place is pretty swank indeed. We had some lunch buffet that set us backapproximately half a million RMB or some such thing. Bob and I went out later in the afternoon to walk off some of theDuck in Orange sauce that we had earlier. We checked out another grocery store (shocker)....and watched them "prepare" some chickens for sale. By the way, the refridgerator cases were Sanyo and manufactured in Japan. Also of note, you could buy bowls of animal blood...I don't know if they were on special or not.Our guide (Joan)and driver (Mr. Chan) picked us up at 430 to go visit Old Town Chongqing. I think we visited the Chongqing equivalent of the Seneca County Flea Market. We were good tourists....pictures, buying "souvenirs", and I had some Cluster of Mutton. Tasty.Afterwards we all went out for Hot Pot. Chongqing is known for their hot pot style of eating. It's very similar to our Melting Pot restaurants. They put a pot of very spicy broth in the center of the table that sits over a burner.They bring all the meat and veggies out raw; fish, beef, chicken, noodles, bok choy, winter melon, bean curd...etc. You simply dump the food into the boiling broth and wait for it to cook. Scoop it out withyour chop sticks and have at it. It was very very spicy and we were sweting like crazy. We drank Tsingtao beer like it was going out of style. I could not leave well enough alone andordered cow tripe (stomach) and duck entrails (guts) for my hot pot....Not as bad as you think. After dinner we drove around the city for a tour at night. The buildings are all lit up and mind-boggling how large the city skyline is. We leave for Guangzho tomorrow afternoon, and I hope to post another blog update when we arrive.