Like all tourists, I come to a hotel room and the first thing I do is search for a TV channel that’s in a language I speak. Then I flip on the radio (if there is one; I have the luxury of one this time) and search for the same.

So I’m stuck at the news channels, CNN, BBC, you know…the lot. And the radio’s going on in classic rock (as a matter of fact, Bon Jovi’s on as we speak), so I’m getting rather comfortable. It’s the only afternoon I’ve had in my hotel room so far, so this is good.

I figure this must be the educational, Speak English campaign radio station (can you tell I’m from programmed Singapore?), because in spite of the music blaring, the DJ’s chattering away in Czech. And he keeps saying what sounds like “faggot” over and over again. No, I’m definitely not above being very tickled by that. Ha ha ha.

(Heart is playing now. Yee-ha.)

Back to the point of finding comfort zones, I went to the tackiest, cheesiest, Big Trouble in Little China Chinese restaurant last night.

Before I get into that, the reason why I went is because I’m with a whole bunch of non-English speaking journos on this trip, in the group I’ve been lovingly lumped into, called “APAC media”.

In this, we’ve got the two guys and a girl from China, a guy and girl from Korea, two guys from Hong Kong and me. The yellow crew.

Actually, one of the Hong Kong journos is a gwei-lo (as he terms it), but I’m counting him in, because he’s the yellowest gwei-lo I’ve met in a while.

Having grown tired of the local fare in a shockingly quick time, the rest of them decided to revolt (the Bok Choy Rebellion, as tall gwei-lo called it, pumping fists in air) and boycott another night planned by the organisers and have some Chinese.

And so we went. It was crazy. I didn’t take pictures, but the rest promised they’d send theirs to me. I don’t know if they realised how crazy the restaurant looked, complete with pandas on frosted glass, a huge photo of the Forbidden City on the wall, the neon signs, the two plastic dragon pillars at the door…But the food…Wow.

As a fan of sweet and sour anything, I was glad to see it wasn’t missing on the menu. People say it’s faux Chinese fare that’s meant for caucasians, but I say nay because I don’t know a single person who doesn’t like the sweet and sour preparation. So sweet and sour. Forever.

The food wasn’t great though. It was actually pretty low quality, like the swill the worst stall in school used to serve up. But after several identical meals (in vastly unidentical restaurants) in this city, you could do worse.

I think the Koreans are going with the safest choice tonight, though. Of all the meals we could have in Prague, I heard one of them chanting “McDonald’s” earlier…