My friend James called me up this morning and asked if I wanted to go take some pictures with him. James doesn’t speak English so through my repeated questioning, it seemed as though we were going to go eat and take some pictures at a place about 30 minutes from my house. I asked him when he wanted to leave, and he said in 20 minutes. I was still in bed, but reluctantly agreed for some reason (I was still half asleep and my guard must have still been down).

And so began Mr. James’ wild ride.

After 40 minutes, James showed up at my house. I hopped in his car, a BMW 7-series that he blew 1,500,000 RMB on (around $200,000.00 US), and we were off. First stop was his photo studio. We promptly, however, entered the shop next door—a dog breeding establishment that smelled like, you guessed it, rotting dog shit. They had three floors, all of which were dirty and stunk. Below ground they housed big dogs, the main floor was supplies and dog grooming, and then the top floor housed puppies. I felt like I was getting a disease just by stepping foot inside the shop, but the dogs were actually quite cute and clean.

After leaving the pet store, we went to James’ studio. We basically spent an hour looking at a magazine that had a feature containing a number of the studio’s photos. We then left and met two people on the street and their huge dog. James chatted with them for a while before they left, and then we left.

We didn’t actually keep moving for long though. We drove to the next corner and parked the car for 30 minutes. Finally the couple with the dog that we had met earlier arrived in their car and we set off again, motorcade style.

We drove for an hour and a half until we were deep into farm country. There were fields and strange agricultural vehicles on all sides. James missed the freeway exit that we wanted so he did what any good Chinese citizen would do: he pulled a u-turn and started driving backwards into oncoming traffic until we were back at the exit. Good job!

We arrived at a strange building in the middle of about a million pear trees. The building was either severely dilapidated or still under construction. It turned out to be the later. There were four girls in red uniforms waiting in the 300-plus car parking lot to greet us. We were the only two cars there. In the middle of the parking lot, there were two chefs attending to an entire animal carcass being cooked caveman-style over a tree branch and leaf fire.

We got out of the cars and were led to a red carpet that went deep into the pear trees, and shielded our shoes from the dirt and mud. Several rocking chairs had been setup, as well as a table with tea, and various fresh fruit and finger foods. We were joined by a man and two cute girls who must have been in their early twenties, and we all just chatted and snacked for a while in the shade of the pear trees.

We then went into the building and up to the second floor for lunch. Now, what followed was one of the most lavish and fancy feasts I have ever experienced, even if it was all pear-themed. The furnishings were all gold trimmed lavish items that you would expect to find in the fanciest restaurants in the states. Each dish had an immense focus on presentation, weather it was hand-carved ornate designs into edible pumpkin bowls that held mixed fruit salads, or dishes that featured a candle holder on the bottom that illuminated the soup for a nice effect while keeping it warm. The food was quite delicious, and never ending. All in all, we must have had 30 dishes for the 8 of us. We didn’t come close to finishing even a single dish. One of my favorites was the plain old beans, which made me realize that I hadn’t had just beans during my entire stay in China. The main feature, however, came in later. It was the carcass that had been roasting out in the parking lot, a full sheep. Two chefs carved it up for us, while the other 9 waitresses handled every other conceivable need.

Apparently what was going on was that the restaurant hadn’t opened yet, and we were giving some of the dishes a test before they were served to the general public. We were all pleased and I would not hesitate to recommend the restaurant to anyone. The owner of the restaurant was the man who met us there, and one of the two cute girls was his wife. He owned the pear trees, which he claimed would number 500,000 by the end of the year. James told me that he was the main supplier of pears for all of China.

After lunch, we proceeded to follow the red carpet back into the pear tree forest for tea and more fresh fruit. James and I grabbed our cameras and got some cool pictures of everyone in the forest, as well as a few shots of the big dog from earlier. After about 4 more hours of relaxing, we finally left.

My expectation for lunch and taking a few pictures was 2 to 3 hours.

In reality, I was gone from 10am until 7pm. 9 hours total.

My whole day was shot, but it was worth it 