A very nice hotpot gathering with Howie, his dad, a two aunts ( his dad’s sisters)

take a close look at the label 🙂

I’ve encountered these interesting lighted mirrors in several hotels. They turn on and off by tapping a touch-point power switch that you can see toward the bottom, in the center

Howie has a pal (named You Biao) who has a guitar store. He joined us for dinner, but he had to “eat and run” because he had two students coming for lessons.

Later Howie and I stopped over to hang out with You Biao for a bit. Nice guy

Besides music, we also talked about motorcycles. You Biao talked about a cross-Russia motorcycle trip he went on with a couple friends. The friends dropped off after a bit and You Biao was “last man standing”. Ultimately bad weather and roads made him also abandon the trip. But it was clearly amazing. I told him he needed to write a book of the adventure.

On that topic we discussed Che Guevara’s famous “Motorcycle Diaries” book and the movie that had been made from it.

You Biao had a couple motorcycles in his guitar shop, including his Moto Guzzi! (see photo!)

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(posting from the restaurant’s WeChat page)

Variations of this concept have been in about half the hotels. Very nice!

Buckwheat noodles. Howie had introduced these to me a couple years ago! Yummy!

This was a new restaurant that had just opened. The owner was excited to have a foreign guest!