Yesterday, the 9th, we went back to the street market over to the West of us and got some amazing meet and rice dishes. The sad part is we didn’t know what half of it was. But it was delicious. We went and just pointed to what we wanted and it turned out to be a very successful meal! As we were ordering/pointing everyone in the area was looking us…we may have been the first Americans to eat there J haha. But they will be seeing more of us because we will be going back at some point over the next 5 weeks. The woman who was getting our food was just laughing at us because she knew we didn’t have a clue as to what we were ordering…and she was right!
We went to class and finished our section on Chinese history…all of those dynasties get confusing. We asked Weiqi about traveling and day trips and she was so willing to help she immediately called her husband to ask him questions about where we should go. They gave us some awesome tips so hopefully next weekend we can get a couple of day trips in!
We heard about a bar that has cheap drinks in the city (which is very uncommon at a bar here) so we headed over to this place after relaxing for a while. It was a fun place. It was called Windows and the drinks were cheap J another cool thing about it was that it was a giant melting pot for foreigners. So we met people from all over the world. Some of the people were just visiting Shanghai and others had moved to Shanghai. We got some tips on where to go and what to see around the city and around the neighboring parts of Shanghai.
On the way home we stopped at the night street cookers and instead of just the normal lamb that I usually get I also got Chicken intestines (atleast that is what a local said they were)…which were really good. except I forgot to say 'bu la' which means no spice, so they were a tad spicy. I hope I will learn soon that most things come spicy unless you say no spice.
So as I write this on the morning of the 10th I look outside and it is a gorgeous day! The sun is shinning and the smog is non-existent. It is still chilly out but it is going to be a great day to be a tourist.
Some things I have noticed about the Chinese….
They are very concerned about conserving energy…kind of. For example, In our room you must put the key into a slot to turn on the power…that way you don’t leave you lights burning when you leave. It’s actually a good idea, it makes sense. But contradicting that they leave most doors open into the buildings…which lets out all of the heat which in turn doesn’t conserve energy.
Paper products are harder to get and definitely more expensive. It is rare to go to a restaurant and get paper napkins…actually it is rare to get napkins in general. Public restrooms you do not get toilet paper and then after washing your hands there are definitely no paper towels. But on the contrary everyone gets food to go and what does that come in…styrofoam to go containers.
One more thought…..Thank God a horn honk has a universal meaning….MOVE! I feel as though the honks are used in excess, like any other busy city, but with the nontraditional ways of the traffic patterns those horns can save your life!
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