Monday started just like every other day, woke up, got ready, grabbed a cup of instant coffee. Normal right?! Yes, I’d say so.
It was shopping and real coffee day with my new assistants. This began at about 1pm, we met up near a park and walked around then grabbed a late lunch and coffee, after which we went shopping. The needs were few but the items found were many! I really needed some kind of hair items to help control the crazy mass on top of my head! Growing out a pixie cut is always a pain in the butt…but the lovely humidity of the area seems to be making it extra fun. Also, possibly shoes, as they wanted to go to a nice bar and all my shoes were the athletic kind.
After a nice lunch and relaxing coffee, we went to a back alley (honestly I had no idea where we were and could have possibly been sold on the black market!). This alley had a bunch of different shops selling everything from bags that looked like Prada but instead said Arpda, other things like nail polish were found (can I get a yea!), as well as some jewelry and a couple of cute headbands. We also browsed a few shops and bargained our prices down. One of the assistants wanted a new smaller cell phone but didn’t want to pay a lot; we went to many different stalls asking and bargaining prices until she heard a price she’d agree to. For all of us in the US, this is not the normal, unless at a flea market or possibly a used car lot.
The shopping over and we all went our separate ways to eat dinner and change for the evening festivities.
The night began at about 9:30, we went to a bar near the European City called The Pirate Ship, there was even a van parked outside with the bars logo and characters on it…one of them looked like Johnny Depp from the Pirates of the Caribbean…only in cartoon form. It was decorated like a pirate ship, even had the dice game that they play. The bar was semi empty as it was Monday night, the beer was very light and they ordered about 20 for 4 of us, but looking back now I know why. The beer didn’t contain but half of the normal alcohol content that it does in the states. After about an hour of being there the owner of the bar was informed that a foreigner was there, he came over to greet us and stated that the foreigners are entitled to a 90% off discount, I thought I heard them wrong. As it is the beers are already pretty cheap, 1 beer is about 10 yuan, which in USD is about $1.60, after the discount I’d pay .16c for 1 beer. The owner’s friend also joined us and decided it was KTV time, and also began to dance. KTV is like karaoke; people
sing quite off key drink a lot and laugh at and with each other. I ended the night drinking only about 4 beers which is about 1.5 normal beers in a 4 hour period. Let’s just say, drunk in China does not get checked off the list. Haha! But for my counterparts, who haven’t destroyed their livers in college…they were a bit tipsy.
That’s about it for now, check out the videos of the day.
It was shopping and real coffee day with my new assistants. This began at about 1pm, we met up near a park and walked around then grabbed a late lunch and coffee, after which we went shopping. The needs were few but the items found were many! I really needed some kind of hair items to help control the crazy mass on top of my head! Growing out a pixie cut is always a pain in the butt…but the lovely humidity of the area seems to be making it extra fun. Also, possibly shoes, as they wanted to go to a nice bar and all my shoes were the athletic kind.
After a nice lunch and relaxing coffee, we went to a back alley (honestly I had no idea where we were and could have possibly been sold on the black market!). This alley had a bunch of different shops selling everything from bags that looked like Prada but instead said Arpda, other things like nail polish were found (can I get a yea!), as well as some jewelry and a couple of cute headbands. We also browsed a few shops and bargained our prices down. One of the assistants wanted a new smaller cell phone but didn’t want to pay a lot; we went to many different stalls asking and bargaining prices until she heard a price she’d agree to. For all of us in the US, this is not the normal, unless at a flea market or possibly a used car lot.
The shopping over and we all went our separate ways to eat dinner and change for the evening festivities.
The night began at about 9:30, we went to a bar near the European City called The Pirate Ship, there was even a van parked outside with the bars logo and characters on it…one of them looked like Johnny Depp from the Pirates of the Caribbean…only in cartoon form. It was decorated like a pirate ship, even had the dice game that they play. The bar was semi empty as it was Monday night, the beer was very light and they ordered about 20 for 4 of us, but looking back now I know why. The beer didn’t contain but half of the normal alcohol content that it does in the states. After about an hour of being there the owner of the bar was informed that a foreigner was there, he came over to greet us and stated that the foreigners are entitled to a 90% off discount, I thought I heard them wrong. As it is the beers are already pretty cheap, 1 beer is about 10 yuan, which in USD is about $1.60, after the discount I’d pay .16c for 1 beer. The owner’s friend also joined us and decided it was KTV time, and also began to dance. KTV is like karaoke; people
sing quite off key drink a lot and laugh at and with each other. I ended the night drinking only about 4 beers which is about 1.5 normal beers in a 4 hour period. Let’s just say, drunk in China does not get checked off the list. Haha! But for my counterparts, who haven’t destroyed their livers in college…they were a bit tipsy.
That’s about it for now, check out the videos of the day.