HOT POT!!! I had dinner last night at a Sichuan hot pot place for the first time since I've been back. Despite an outside temperature of 90 degrees and very little air conditioning indoors, some friends and I decided to sit ourselves around a hot fire and cook food in extremely spicy chili red pepper broth. Hot pot is the most amazing food to eat because not only do you sweat it out as you eat it, it is so pungent and odorous that your clothes and hair smell like it for a few days after. We were given large fans with old Chinese maidens on them and lots and lots of beer. You order different meats, vegetables and noodles, and then dunk them in each in the broth. We thought we ordered some fish but they brought us snake instead at which point I started to moan. After quickly taking the snake away, we lurched ourselves forward towards the hot pot making sure to cook everything just right. After 30 minutes of hot flashes and several glasses of beer, none of us could muster up any energy to say much other than ask for the bill. This food really takes the life out of you. Fortunately, the Cantonese have mastered the effects of staying "hot and cool" in their hot/humid climate and have foods to restore balance in your stomach. So we drank "liang cha" afterwards-a type of black-colored herbal tea sold all over the streets here to help cool you down. It tasted like an old foot but restored some dignity to my duzi (stomach).