Hello there..

I ate a scorpion today!!!!

Today we didn’t do too much; it was the only day where we had only one event in the itinerary. After a so-so breakfast (they had hot milk and sausages on a rolling grill), we went to the Lord Mengchang Mausoleum where it was so hot that even when we were standing there listening to the people talk, we were sweating. We took some pictures there with the people. The government officials from the Shandong government who we ate dinner with the other night were there too. One of the memorable parts of being there was that on the path to the small house,

— HAHA, guess I didn’t finish this post either lol.  Sorry!  I really was very tired each night on the trip lol.  I’ll supplement the photos below with commentary. 😉

After surviving through the path to the Mausoleum where there were worms literally dangling from the tree branches and creating some sort of huge swinging web — there were hundreds of these worms! — we arrived inside the small house.  We took a picture in our DiSCOVER shirts as a group and it was just as hot as Day 9 was. 

Eddie doing some calligraphy. 

Lord Mengchang: 

Despite how humid and hot it was, we still managed to look good. 😉 

We then headed to the Mo Zi Museum.  This wasn’t a planned trip in our itinerary, so it was interesting to stop by and learn about certain inventions from a man named Mo Zi.  Unfortunately, the explanation of all the devices were in Mandarin which meant that although by sight, we all looked like we were all attentive and understanding everything that the museum guide was saying, we really were just thinking, “When is this going to be over?  I don’t understand a thing. :(“

The Mo Zi man himself: 

We were told that we couldn’t take photos or so I remember.  Anyway, I sneaked in a few.  Without taking the 100,000 photos that I usually do while travelling, I don’t remember too much of what we saw inside the museum (ha).  Here’s just some slanted arrows: 

Nice pagoda seen outside the museum doors.  And just look at that nice rare blue sky with soft clouds in the background! 

One beautiful example of Engrish displayed perfectly on our breakfast card from the hotel: 

Those of you that are reading this blog up to this point are probably thinking, “Where are the scorpions!  I want to see some scorpion-eating action!!” Well, dear grasshopper, you’ll just have to acquire some patience and wait because here is a picture of a dish at dinner that tasted worse than the bug itself — tofu that tasted grimy and just plain yucky: 

And here’s what you’ve been waiting to see.  Scorpions!  Served on a dish on our table during dinner!!! 

None of us were expecting this by the way.  It wasn’t part of our usual dishes during meal time and was totally the surprise of the night.   I guess Shandong wanted to make sure that their meals were sufficient (yes, definitely — we always had leftovers every night) and memorable (yes, thank you, you accomplished that too).  

And here’s another view, a close-up. 🙂

At our table, the three of us took a picture right before we scooped the suckers into our mouths.  Ready?!  On the count of 1… 2…

…3!  Our reactions afterwards with our hands showing what we thought of it…

And that concludes Day 10!  That night, we make sure that our present from the Lord Mengchang Mausoleum was tucked safely on our bus… This is funny because from this point on in the trip, we had to make sure that this little man-statue was always with us so that we could bring him back home to Toronto to display at Mon Sheong.