Celebrating U2 tickets the Chinese way

For the first time in my life, I'm going to a U2 concert. I had to join their fan club first, ($50 for the year) but then it gave me a presale password, almost guaranteeing me tickets. Luckily (and without knowing), I joined an hour before presale started, and ended up getting great seats... however during that hour before I was bewildered, and panicking that my presale code wasn't working.

I got tickets to U2, time to celebrate? Is a 12 course meal from 6pm to 9pm a little excessive? Absolutely. Here's what I had:

We started off with a cold plate of jelly fish and surrounded by slices of octopus, pork, and other meat-type things?

Second was a deep fried crab ball with a sweet and sour dipping sauce. The little crab claws are protruding out of the ends so you can use them as a grip.

Thirdly we had these huge oysters in their shells with ginger sauce and chives.

Then there was this mushroomy traditional dish with scallops and a really thin dark vegetable that looked like the hair you pull out of your sink, but taste much better.

Then a shrimp type dish, with something else?!

Then a shark fin soup, although I strongly disagree with this! If you haven't seen the movie Shark Water, then rent it today, it's amazing. I hope our soup was imitation shark fin, actually I'm banking on it for my conscience's sake.

Then there was a giant lobster plate, kinda like the picture shows but ours had a gooey sauce. I made a mess.

Then a chicken dish with the head still on the plate and a small tomato in its mouth. Nothing new here, but still amazing how they just cut it up right through all the bones. Funny how I get so annoyed when I have to eat around the bones all the time, especially with chop sticks. I must be a spoiled North American kid.

Another plate with bones, but more expected when it's a whole fish. Googly eyes and all here. Apparently Leana used to fight with her brother for the fish gills... I didn't try them.

If you weren't full at this point then you could eat the black bean noodle dish, and then have some of the sticky rice. I wish I had room to enjoy the rice, as it's one of my faves.

Desert was also served. Almond cookies? Sesame cookie balls?

An extremely expensive and excessive meal, but maybe I forgot to tell you that this was for my wife's brother-in-law who recently got married? Perhaps I forgot to mention to you this was a celebratory dinner for them, with all their relatives? Did I at least let you know that I was there with my wife's family and relatives as the only 'guilo', and Leana couldn't even make it?! I haven't seen the majority of these people since my wedding, but there I was, waiting for the odd conversation in English and still having a good time; I can only pick out the odd Mandarin word if it has to do with food, but there was lots of food talk so...

See you at the concert? Oh ya, and I don't even know if I can go yet; we are touring around that time, haha.