Birthday in Hunan

So I finally found a way around the nasty censorship of this website in China. Here are some photos of the 60th birthday of Chen Yi's mother, in rural Hunan province. It was a great party as usual, and I ate many unfamiliar things (as usual) including snake (and snake heart, snake blood) and turle-soup. I'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Auntie is washing the spicy peppers

A freshly caught snake (we ate snake 2 times)

Me and '66'. Chen Yi's little niece

After killing the snake

66 Playing with the fireworks

A snake in a bag (2 Kg)

Going fishing (for crabs, frogs and little fish)

Red envelopes containing money, presents at the party

On our way to the party. About 80 people came to the restaurant

Changsha train station in the morning

Cheering with rice wine

Drinking snake blood is supposed to be healty

Chen Yi, waiting for dinner

Another niece

A new government building is being built across the street. To be honest, it kind of looks like #$%

Some photos

Last week I filed some 30 job applications for all kinds of things, and for some reason today they all (5) called me. I set up some interviews for English teacher, a business English trainer, immigration interview trainer and personal language tutor. My week is planned full with job interviews now. Meanwhile, some photos to enjoy:

Little bird in Hong Kong

For my girlfriend's birthday (December 10), we two and a friend from Shanghai went to a famous Beijing Roast Duck Restaurant. It is located in a hutong, but easy to find, thanks to the many signs and graffiti on the walls everywhere. "Just follow the ducks"

Inside were photos of all the famous international guests: government delegations from Peru, Israel, America and more countries. Some famous Chinese movie stars...

As this is an expensive and famous place, one roast duck is not cheap. This puppy cost us 16 Euros! It was presented to us before chopping it up. We ate the meat and had them grill the rest (neck, legs, feet, head and of course, the intestines)

... And this is how you eat Beijing Roast duck: take one sheet of that small wrap, put in some meat, leek and cucumber all dipped in that black soy sauce, then roll the whole thing up and eat it. Delicious!

Me and our friend 'Johny' in front of the restaurant. It was a cold and windy night indeed

Back home we ate a birthday cake and had a glass of wine

Just some random photo, taken in the Hong Kong museum of art.