The Mayflower - Zhuhai, China

So here I am in Zhuhai, China. I have been here about a week and everyday we've had something different and a little weird for dinner. Well I went out for dinner last night to the Mayflower and it ended up as a gong show.

Now this is a seafood place (which we didn't know until we got there). But it isn't the type of place where you just order from a menu. Instead they take you to an aquarium where you choose which crab or fish or lobster you want. There is something a little strange about looking a crab in the eyes before you sentence it to be your dinner, but hey, I did it.

We ordered a ton of different dishes and each one came with it's challenges. So many challenges that the manager (who is the only one who speaks english there) came to help teach us how to eat.

First they dropped off some pumpkin seeds. I took one and ate it, only to spit it out when I heard the waitress scream. Apparently I was supposed to bite the shell and eat the pit. Then we got a plate of rice. We had no forks, just chop sticks. And this rice wasn't sticky either! So all of us loaded it on our plates and began eating it grain by grain. Someone came by and started shoveling it into a bowl and holding it up to his mouth, demonstrating how to eat that kind of rice.... okay! a little closer! Finally the crab came. I don't think I've every actually had crab, and so I had no idea what I was doing. I was trying to rip legs off and biting the shell to crack it. It was messy to say the least. Eventually they came by and helped me out by handing me one of those cracking devices. Phew. I felt a little silly that night.