Hot, hot, hot

We met up, as planned, and took the shuttle across to the Sandals Ochi Beach Resort where the Kimono's restaurant is. Our butlers escorted us to reception and booked us in while we took a seat at the bar. Our table was soon ready and we set sat round a large tepanyaki grill. It was incredibly noisy in the restaurant and, at times, it was hard to hear what the waiting staff were saying. The chef arrived at the table and within minutes it was clear that he had real personality. He sang and he joked as he broke the ice and got most of the diners involved and chatting. Two corpses at the far end of the table didn't really get involved at all... but at least it was only two, this year!

Then as a challenge he put one pea on each of several plates and then putting them in front of each couple decided there would be a chopsticks race. Whoever managed to pick up the single pea and feed their partner first would be the winner. This was no challenge for the Gorse Fix and the Silver Vixen was munching on the pea within a second... meanwhile everyone else was still chasing their peas round their plates.

Oil was sprayed onto the grill surface and ignited. Huge gouts of flame charred the vegetables as they were cooking. This was repeated several times with the meat and also the mahi mahi later. It was a really good experience this year - making up for our disappointment last year.

We hopped on the shuttle back to Plantation. We had just missed the steel band, but the second show of the evening was just beginning. This was the chap who balances things on his head - sounds naff, but it's actually very impressive, particularly when one of the items is his daughter sitting on a chair, that he is balancing on one chair leg. He was followed by the limbo chap. This involved some audience participation as several chaps were press-ganged into having a go. It was all good fun, and once the audience members had sat back down, he culminated the act by dancing under a flaming bar.

Flames became the order of the evening. The next act was the fire eater and juggler. The first part of the act involved a lot of fire eating... but we were still full from dinner so didn't get tempted. Then he started juggling with fire wheels. These were like small bicycle wheels with three flaming spokes and an axle that could be grabbed. He started to pick on audience members to join in. This was where the Silver Vixen got caught last year... so we had chosen seats way back. Scully took no chances and displayed her walking stick, the Silver Vixen ran out of sight entirely and the Gorse Fox was looking for the video from last year to show Agent Mulder. That was when the chap pounced and the Gorse Fox was taken up to get involved in the act. He had to dance with the fire wheel rotating on his head. Oh the shame! Agent Mulder was quick enough to get the whole thing on video.

That was actually the end of the entertainment so we chatted for a while then headed off to bed.