Liuyang Day 2

Well, after the annoyance with the tickets on the first day, I have to say that Liuyang is kicking ass so far.

I was met at the airport last night by Amy, Yuleoh and Mr. Xu (this is how we were introduced; I'm Mr. Wu and he's Mr. Xu). They were very gracious and spoke excellent english, and we chatted on the 30 minute drive from Changsha to Liuyang. On the way, they informed me that they had changed my hotel; the first one did not offer breakfast and was 3-stars, while the new one offered a free (buffet!) breakfast and was _5_ stars.

5 stars indeed. This is one of the absolute nicest accomodations I've ever stayed in. The room is MASSIVE. I have a king-sized bed, a wide-screen hi-def television (with 1 english channel), a steam shower and a jaccuzi and fresh effing fruit delivered every morning. Oh, and did I mention that after all those problems with the tickets, I realized that the only ticket I could get for the next day was first class? That's right, I lounged in the first class lounge. I flew in the front of the plane with a Chinese Oil-man who had been to Calgary many times and spoke wonderful english. I felt like a king.

Anyhow, back to the present. Today I was picked up (after a tasty buffet breakfast, Chinese Style), and was taken to the Aurora Fireworks office to meet with the head of the company (Yuleoh's brother, Mr. Jin) and his wife (Nancy Jin). I toured their sample room (pictures to come), browsed their catalog and talked about fireworks with Yuleoh and Nancy for a few hours. After that, we stopped into a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with wonderful food. The food here is almost universally wonderful, but the majority of the ingredients is a single vegetable.

The hottest damned chilis you've ever had. I swear, this food is _so_ damned spicey, I walked into a restaurant this evening and my eyes watered and I started coughing because the AIR was spicey. It's good stuff though!

After the meeting and the lunch, they dropped me back at my room for a nap and quick shower. An hour later, I was taken to two factories where I toured their production facilities for Roman Candles and Shells. These things are MASSIVE; upwards of 260-300 employees apiece. I saw most of the machinery and such, but as it's a national holiday everyone went home early. The production managers were both very, very knowledgable and VERY kind and helpful. I got a few neat pictures, which again will come up a little later.

The neatest part of the day was the tour to a remote little area just as night fell. I met the owners of both factories (candles and shells) and their families and we all sat and watched as they demoed about 30 different shells (2"-6") and another 15-20 candles (30mm-75mm). They had some VERY interested effects and I took notes about 'em all. This was awesome, and the two owners were just unbelievably nice and happy that I enjoyed their fireworks.

After that was the aforementioned spicey-aired restaurant for dinner (the restaurant is owned by Nancy's Aunt, so we got wonderfully traditional food). Great food again. They then took me back to my room and told me to expect them at the Hotel tomorrow t 9:30 for a sight-seeing tour.

I came up to my (top-floor) room and was about to sit down when my room phone rang. Amy and Mr. Xu were downstairs and wanted to know if I would like to join them on the 2nd floor of the hotel for KTV. For the uninitiated (read: me), KTV is Kareoke in a private room, with music-videos set to the kareoke. I walk in and am introduced to 4 members of the Liuyang city council, including the CCP's regional business and export manager (whose name escapes me) and the mayor of the city of Liuyang.

We drank a lot of beer. The tradition is that for a guest, the give you a cup. Then everyone wants to fill your cup, drink it all, then do it 2 more times. There were 7 people in the room. I had 21 glasses of beer in about 15 minutes. This is the equivalent of shotgunning about 8 cans of beer back to back. I sang a duet with one of their wives on the only Chinese song I know the words to and then just clapped and laughed as everyone got more and more trashed.

It's just starting to hit me, so I'm going to eat some fruit and head to bed. I'll post again tomorrow with pictures from today and a run-down of the cake factory and demo they're taking me to tomorrow night!

Thanks for reading all. Hope you're well.

Nathan

PS: Mayan, the words to Muo Li Hua are _so_ much different than what we all sang. We weren't even close :P.