Hooked on majong and tea houses; Sorry for the rules, Guy.

We finally stop at what appears to be a private residence - and is, in fact a private residence. And a tea house. And a small hotel. Actually, more like a bed and breakfast. What Guy and I did not realize was that many of the homes here double as just that. The front of the home was unimposing, but here in the back it's lovely.


Yue Li picks out this shady spot for our afternoon's entertainment. The owners bring table and chairs, majong game and incense to keep the mosquitoes away. Skyler wins three games in a row, and Guy starts to get suspicious that he and Yue Li are making up new rules to confuse him. (And cause him to lose.) He flips his pieces down, certain that he's won. But no, Yue Li tells him, he needs five in a row, not three, or, he could go with two threes-of-a-kind, but either way, he hasn't won. "You never explained that," he protests. Yue Li looks very sympathetic and sad, and says, "Sorry about the rules, Guy. Sorry." It becomes our by-line for the rest of the day whenever he gets frustrated. Sorry about the rules, Guy, really...

After Skyler wins the fourth game Yue Li thoughtfully considers this. She tells him he will have to move if he wins again. "What do you mean, move?" he asks. "Well, probably it's the chair that is lucky," she tells him. We laugh, but she doesn't. She's serious. We switch, I get his chair, I win the next game. Haha. Have to love my daughter-in-law.
We get hungry, so the kids ask the owner if he will start cooking our meal. I sense they feel it might take awhile. Good planning, I think to myself. Something I would have done. After all, the hosts didn't know we'd show up for dinner, probably they will have some lengthy preparation ahead of them.

Lengthier than I guessed. Here Skyler watches the owner catch our dinner.

And, well, yeah.
Nothing goes to waste. The blood is used to make one of our dishes, blood soup.
Plucking the poor little dear. Sigh.
In the middle is the entire chicken. We were a little hesitant, until Sky explained it was part of the "balance" of the food, like presenting an entire fish, the way Guy likes his cooked. You don't necessarily eat every single part, although people certainly do. Along with this we had a sweet and sour cabbage dish, very good, dark greens, a little spicy, stringed potatoes in a salty broth, rice, and the blood soup.
Here Guy tries the chicken foot, which he says was tasty.

A really excellent day, the owner called a loaf truck taxi for us, which I think might have been his neighbor, and we arrive back in Chong Ching around ten.