A City of Extremes...sweet means sweet, spicy damn well means spicy

To say that I'm hurting today would be an understatement. I feel as though there is a constantly expanding balloon in my stomach, which at any point is ready to pop. Oh the joys of traveller's diarrhea. The iron stomach (not the kung fu kind) that I had created after 4 years of college life and multiple visits to China had finally met it's match, and the truth of the matter I can't figure out what caused it.

If ever I deserved to get a bout of abdominal pain and the dreaded laduzi (拉肚子), which quite literally means "pull stomach", this would be the time. Skipping breakfast yesterday, I waited until about 1pm to eat lunch with my gabby comedy act duo. They chose to take Brian and me to the same restaurant that they treated Bob the day before. We were warned that the food would be sweet, but we took that to mean it wouldn't be spicy. Boy, were we wrong.

When they say sweet, they mean dessert-style, rott-your-teeth, a-pound-of-sugar-added in every dish. It was absolutely disgusting, with each dish sweeter than the last. I mean this was the kind of food that could send a diabetic into shock---and that's not a hyperbole. By the end of the meal, I was dreaming of a warm carton of milk (that's how they serve it here--ultrapasterized) to replace the sweet with savory.

Needless to say, I didn't each much for lunch, and my stomach started to feel a little off either from the lack of sustainance, or the plethora of fructose. Then following the end of my shift at 7 pm, we went out to a swimming pool and met up with some other US teachers. **I plan to go back to the pool so I'll save that story for another entry** This meant that aside from my sugar fix, I hadn't had anything to eat all day, up til 9:45 pm. We then were trapped into going to a bar (seriously it was not an option), because one of our students' dad had already bought a VIP lounge to welcome us and demanded that we show up to drink and dance. We returned to our living quarters, but were quickly bombarded with phone calls (about every 5 minutes) asking where we were, and that we had to hurry. Thus finding something quick to eat became top priority.

Bob took us to a make-you-own-noodle-bowl spot that was cheap and quick. Craving anything that wasn't sweet, I made the mistake of telling the chef that I liked spicy food...big mistake. While it was delicious, it was also nuclear, but my hunger outweighed my better judgement. I gave Brian a small bite and he said his mouth was on fire for an hour after eating it. However, there was little time to think about it, and before we knew it, we were headed to the bar.

Now it is Chinese custom to offer you cigarettes and booze, especially if you are their guest, but I wasn't quite feeling that sentiment by the time we got to the bar. I stuck mainly to super sweetened, ice tea, which did not help my stomach due to large amount of sugar and caffeine. At some point, someone started adding Chivas to the tea pitcher, which made things even worse. After doing our time and seeing the parents out of this club (they wanted to dance for at least an hour), I rounded up Brian and Bob and we returned home. I had no idea what I was in for the next day.

While I made it through the morning class with just a little upset stomach feeling. Lunch did not go so well. Our friends that we met from the night before, who promised to treat us to dumplings instead brought us to a xinjiang (western china) restaurant that specializes in spicy food and lamb...great. I ate little, but as is the custom, they kept cheersing us with beer, which meant that we each had a bottle of beer...again not what my stomach needed. The added food seemed to sit heavily in my stomach, and by the cab ride home, I was sprinting to my room (with it's glorious sit down toilet). Since then, I've been in and out of the office, trying my best to petition for cancellation of my evening class (7-9pm). I've taken some Lomotil, but thus far it has been pretty ineffective.

I just recently checked webmd for symptoms and causes of traveller's diarrhea and much to my chagrin, I've found that almost everything I did yesterday could have caused it. For example: excessive amount of fructose (sugar), large amounts of oil, spicy foods such as chilis, ice in drinks, caffeine, improper eating schedules and alcohol are all either laxatives or can be linked to food poisoning. It was like running through a check list. The only thing not on there was undercooked food (so I think). Regardless, lesson learned. Choose your food wisely, and when you talk in extremes...you better damn well prepare yourself. Next stop bathroom...