The first part of the week consisted of a few short trips with a lot of lounging around and intense amounts of sleeping! :) I don't remember EVER sleeping for 11 or 12 hours straight. AND, I did it multiple nights. I'm impressed with myself! (Eat your heart out Alex-he probably doesn't even read this)
Monday was a nice day for a stroll so we decided to walk down to the bookstore/library so I could try to find a dictionary for class and a few other requested books to take back to the U.S. We weren't expecting to see many people out on Monday, since the National Holiday didn't actually begin until Wednesday, but like the interns, others also chose to take the days leading up to the holiday off as well.
The walk to the bookstore took about 20 mins, which also including a brief picture stop: I just
thought this was a neat picture. Lots of men go fishing along the banks in the city. I don't know if they eat the fish, but I personally wouldn't recommend it!The walk also included a 1 Yuan Egg Custard stop for Samuel and Kyle who wanted to see if the little bakery along the way was open again. It was, so Samuel had a nice breakfast of Egg Custard. Needless to say I'm a little jealous. Actually, as far as my allergy is concerned, I've only had one "egg craving" and that was at breakfast with an egg-on-toast Anna was eating. Everything else has been pretty easy to go without. It's amazing how easy it is to give something up when you don't really have a choice on the matter.
As we passed the Custard place, a verbal dispute was in action. I thought the Chinese always speak too loudly and sometimes mistake normal conversation for arguments because of speech patterns (or lack thereof?), but not anymore! I now know what a full on Chinese argument is. Let me tell you what! It's intense. Probably because I can't recognize anything with what or how they were speaking, but I still wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that one.
Just thought that this sign was funny. I think it's their "Don't Drink and Drive". It's a car sloshing in a broken wine glass.
We finally made it to the bookstore were we had to beat our way through a crowd of vendors pamphlet passing vendors. Okay, so we didn't beat our way through, but the "paths" they made for customers didn't work all that well. I was a little surprised at the number of people right inside the entrance. Once I figured out what was going on it made more sense. Just to the left of the entrance there is an entire section devoted to electronic dictionaries. That explained the mass of people. There may have been a sale going on, but it didn't concern me. 1.) I couldn't afford an electronic dictionary and 2.) I wouldn't be able to use it, lol. My Chinese isn't anywhere near the level where I might even be able to THINK of getting one. Samuel's Chinese is. He and Anna spent most of their time looking for and eventually purchasing a dictionary. I headed over to the English book section, which consists of the same titles over and over-mostly the Classics that I never read-and Dictionaries. However, all the English to Chinese dictionaries translate into characters and not PIN (Roman letters). So, instead of buying what I had gone there to buy, I purchased a 90 yuan book recommended to me by the Korean Director of the R&D department: Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong if you're interested.
After the book store, we all hopped into a couple of cabs and made our way to a small out door market called the Drum Tower.
We didn't go into the tower, but you can go up to the top and for a few yuan ring the bell. This market was more of a this' and thats' sort of place when compared to the market at Ancient
Culture street, but I was able to find some really fun stuff there for not much money (a good thing after dropping 90 yuan on a book). We through the various rows and came across a fun green box which we thought Samuel might be able to put his mom's necklace in. This box wasn't quite what we were all thinking and with a price tag of 180 yuan, it definitely wasn't. We put it down and walked away, and as we did the vendor started yelling prices, interspersed with Hello, at us. Within a matter of 30 seconds the price had fallen to 40. Wow. And that was most likely a generous price at 40, let alone 180!We moved on to the next row and found a little figurine shoppe. I stopped and tried to communicate with the vendors, which I was doing fairly well without actually speaking, when a friendly Chinese customer started translating. She was wrong, lol. I gave the owner the cash she translated and he told me the price from earlier. I've noticed the Chinese always have advice, help or knowledge, but it isn't always right. Very seldom at that. Oh well. It was a nice gesture and it even made the blog!
We finished looking at all the vendors on that street and decided it was time for lunch. As we were leaving we passed a man selling furs. I'm pretty sure Kyle is sporting a fox, but more importantly is the skin in the far bottom right corner. The TIGER skin we were all aghast at. I don't know where this man got it, but I felt bad for even acknowledging that
he was selling an actual Tiger skin. Incredible.We all got back to the hotel, had a bite to eat and Anna, Samuel and I realized we needed to go to the bank to transfer funds into the account of Samuel's friend Jan who was setting up our trip later on in the week. By this point we were absolutely wiped out. But, if we didn't do it then, at that moment, we weren't going to move. What we thought was going to be a quick trip to the bank ended up taking an hour. ONE HOUR. I now know why everything takes so long to do around here. No lines, sneaking up and in. And on top of that, the cashier knows they are the ones in power so they take their sweet time doing whatever they want. I kept flashing to pictures of wolves pacing the edge of their territory, waiting for their prey to make a move. Granted, no one was pacing, but that was the feel emanating in the room. Anna and I sat back and watched it all while Samuel worked his magic and got the help of the man in front of him before anyone else could move in. After that, I just went straight to bed. That was my 12 hr night, 6pm-6am. A good day and an even better night!
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