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- The tour in New York (03/27/99):
It was a dark, cool night, Zhang Guoyong and I were driving in New Jersey Highway 10 to Ye Ye's home,
concrete buildings beside us looked like stone beasts and wind whistled pass the unclosed window.
I felt just like in a horror movie. "Is this real east coast?", I asked myself.
We reached a separate old house in the forest, everything looks made of wood. By the light,
I saw a face just behind the window, that was Qin Xiaohua. Upstairs, Yeye showed up, and her husband
with smile. And, here they were, Qin Xiaohua and A Mao. Xiaohua is just as she was in the college, and
A Mao, well, just as he was in your last reunion photo. We had Chinese tea, Chinese food, Chinese
cigarette, listened to Chinese music ..., everything so Chinese. We kept talking about our friends for
hours, till everyone started to fall into sleep. Then there was a big fight over the only guest bed, of course,
the only lady won the combat.
The next day, we headed for Big Apple. At the train station, the machine just didn't want to eat our
money, so everyone took his/her wallet out and literally tried every one-dollar bill we had. Finally, we got
in without breaking any of those machines.
New York is a huge and tall city. On the 42th Street, skyscrapers glared my eyes with their irregular
shapes and colorful windows. It was a really tour in N.Y.C and we took pictures here and there. However,
someone made a big mistake by wearing high heels that day. At the end of day, we were all staggering along.
One of the most important motivation for A Mao to come to NYC was to bring some Chinese white wine home.
Unfortunately, he thought he took all the cons and pros into consideration, but he forgot that day was a Sunday,
and all the liquor stores in Chinatown were closed. Now the only thing I can remember is a dazzlingly splendid
hotel in the golden sunshine. We got back exhausted, but we already had a big plan in our mind for the following
weekend: Washington D.C and Crab dinner.
- Crab Banquet (04/03/99):
Action Plan
| Who | Arrival Time | Destination |
| A Mao | Friday night | Xiaohua's home, Baltimore |
| Cheng Chen | Friday Midnight | Xiaohua's home, Baltimore |
| Ye Ye and her husband | Friday Midnight | Xiaohua's home, Baltimore |
| Fang Ji | Saturday early morning | Xiaohua's home, Baltimore |
| Deng Lan's Family | Saturday morning | Xiaohua's home, Baltimore |
| Zhang Guoyong's family | Satruday morning | Xiaohua's home, Baltimore |
After a nice dinner at Zhang Guoyong's home, Ye ye, Ge Nanxiang and I headed for Washington D.C.
Before we stepped into Qin Xiaohua's Apt., we smelled Chinese food. Guess what, A Mao was cooking "Dong1
Gua1 Tang1" for us. Even though I didn't taste any salt in the soup, I finished my bowl fast.
Just before we went to bed, we thought we'd better make sure that Fang Ji wouldn't be late tomorrow,
so we wanted to use some high tech to help us. It didn't took too long for us to come up with a solution,
we decided to use the fax software to wake up Fang Ji at 5:00 am. After testing it for a couple of times,
(you wonder how we tested? Qin Xiaohua had two phone lines.) we thought we could have a sound sleep
for the rest of the night, well, technically, the rest of the early morning. I didn�t know when I was woken by
the modem and I heard Fang Ji saying "hello". "Am I dreaming?", I couldn't think about it more and went back
to sleep again. I woke up again by the door bell, and heard Fang Ji's voice again, suddenly, I was completely awake.
First I saw a broad forehead when Fang Ji came in. "His head must be full of wisdom." I thought in my mind.
After we finished all "Tang1 Yuan2" cooked by A Mao, Zhang Guoyongs and Deng Lans came on time. OK, let's go to DC!
First stop in DC was China town. With Chinese stores on the street and my old friends beside, I had an illusion of
backing China and backing our past. After said hello to the Capital Hills, we tried to enjoy
cherry blossoms. The trees looked just around the corner but we could not reach them because of traffic jam.
So we had to make a truly "Zou3 Ma3 Guan1 hua1" in the cars.
We were back to Xiaohua's apartment with a basket of crabs. "They are so fresh, you can call it 'nature'.", A Mao
showed us a fierce crab with waterweeds. We were all surprised to find out that A Mao became such an excellent cook
after we started gobbling. Although our mouth were full of delicious crab meat, we still could make some comments:
"Female is better!" by Ge Nanxiang.
"I am still hunting, forever! One is not enough!" by A Mao.
I know that Ge Nanxiang was talking about crab,. but what was A Mao's point?
Yes, we had a nice reunion. Here is the evidence:PICTURE OF CRAB.
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Report by Xiaofei 
