Last Friday, our finance department headed out to celebrate the end of another succesful fiscal quarter and the end to a two year long SAP conversion. How to celebrate? Drive out to Suzhou and enjoy the famous hairy crabs. No problem, I figured. I've never tasted them hairy crabs before and people tell me they're delicious. So why not?

Well, things got off to a bit of a "hairy" start as the day dawned as rainy and foggy. A one hour drive turned into a two and a half hour drive through puddles, flodded tollgates and spontaneous sink holes. 

When we finally arrived at the restaurant, I was hungry and ready to sink my teeth into the prized crab meat. But wait - not so fast. First we actually had to PICK the crabs we wanted to eat. So we trecked down an alley inside a small bamboo hut, which hung half way over the lake. Under the hut, tens of cages full of crabs of various sizes. Needless to say I left the picking to the experts. 

Joyce and Alen negotiating the price per crab.

When we finally got to the restaurant, the typical feast was already waiting for us. There were cooked scallops, dried fish, fried fish, boiled fish, "drunken" shrimp, stir fried eel, chicken soup, pork ribs and many many vegetable dishes. I nibbled on many but wanted to wait for the real deal like everyone else. 

  

Sandy, Angela and Alen facing the camera. Kimmy and Anson in front of the fish and the snails.

When the hairy crabs finally came, this is what it looked like; crabs piled high; females on the bottom and male crabs on the top .My co-workers were kind enough to showed me how to attack the beasts. There was a whole process to it, a specific sequence that you followed. But to be honest, the deeper inside the shell we dug, the more disgusting it got.

It seemed to me that all the meat was left uneaten (no one touched the legs) but instead, folks dug inside the shells, slurped and sucked everything that came off. I did finished one (sort of) but I politely declined offers to take additional crabs home for the family...A three and a half hour return trip home and I was ready to be finished with the adventure.

The funny part? A day later David and Raili attended a Chinese wedding where hairy crabs were served and guess who fell in love with the taste? RAILI.

She finished off three crabs and according to David, there was absolutely nothing left inside those shells... Slurp them up, Shanghai Girl!