Christmas Day was a big BBQ we had planned, to mix both local custom and some of our home-grown traditions. The plan was to have a BBQ over an open flame in a massive wok set on a few bricks up on the roof of the complex with wood collected from the surrounding parks, meat from the local open air markets and of course a few beers for good measure to see the afternoon out. Well sneaking a wok and a few bricks up to the roof past the front reception desk is easy, but wood for the fire is a bit harder. In the cover of dusk on Christmas Eve we managed to get some bags big enough to stash the broken bits of trees up the stairs like some poor peasant Santa Clause getting ready for the big day. Wood and wok ready, we leave it for the next day to get to the market for the BBQ lunch.
BANG!!! "Merry Christmas!!!" fireworks thrown under the door at 6AM and now the room smells like caudite. Merry Christmas China. We're off to a good start I see.
Breakfast is a bit of home comfort - coffee, bacon avo and eggs on toast, then Dave's family tradition of beer in the hand by 9AM, so down it goes, and about 2 tall boys later were all in the spirit of it, Santa hats and all, peddaling down the road to the markets. Imagine being a local Chinese on your way to work at the old tea shop on a usual Thursday morning and you see 7 giggling westerners in silly red hats cycling down the road yelling out Merrry Christmas to everyone. A little strange to say the least.
Group consensus on the menu was to be a little off centre today. No sausages, no steaks, no lamb, no prawns, nothing really that we usually have at home. I think it looked a little like this:
- Beef (no idea what cut or if it really is beef actually)
- Roast pork - to be skewered and re-heated over open flame
- Roast duck again re-skewered and cooked
- dog meat - thats right we had dog meat on Christmas Day
- and some veggies, but i can't remember what they were..I'm still thinking about the dog.
Oh and how tasty it turned out to be. Once I got past the idea of it, the dog meat was pretty good and everyone tucked in till there was nothing left. Don't judge me till you've tried it!!! We started off the cooking at about 1PM and it was all going well till about 4PM when the reception decided it was too unsafe and we were forced to disband. Flames were smothered, everything packed up and the party carried on in our room until about 10PM I think. It turned into a mess with spilled beer, broken crockery and general mayhem caused by 10 people in a small double room. After most people had gone off to bed, Joel, Karina (not my sister), Jordan and myself decided that we needed tap beer and undertook a mission to the restaurant down the road that serves it. Bicycle being the easiest way to get there was probably not the safest as we had to double on one (Karina was in no state to ride on her own so she was passenger) and on the way back for reasons known only to her she jumped off the back of a mving one. The fall was seriously like a sack of drunken potatoes going down and the ensuing laughter caused everone to double over in stitches. Joel was sick from laughing...the stupidity of it all. The perfect end to Christmas.
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