This morning I felt sick. I think everyone is getting me sick because everyone has had some sort of flu/cold symptoms. I woke up with a headache and sore throat this morning, but I skipped class and slept longer and just had a little sore throat by the time I woke up, so I decided to go out with the group.Anyways, after everyone got back from class, we all went to Xiantiandi, which is the birthplace of communism (the picture of the building). Then, we went into a museum-type thing called Shikumen: Open House, and basically it was a typical middle class Chinese house in the 1920s and 30s, before the population boom. It was really nice…there were a lot of rooms, and lots of antique furniture. [Me and Joanna are sitting in one of the rooms of this house in the picture]
Ironically enough, right next to the building of the birthplace of communism, there’s a huge shopping mall and lots of restaurants that inundate tourists with tons of consumerist messages. It’s almost sad, like capitalism just spitting in communism’s face. Anyways, being from a capitalist society, I wanted to stick around and shop, but it started raining and we had to leave. So, we decided to take a taxi to the Yu Garden area, which was nearby.
We didn’t actually get to go in to Yu Garden because it’s not on the agenda, but we walked around the area, where there were many more stores and shops for tourists. We were hungry, so we decided to go to Din Tai Fung for dinner. Din Tai Fung is like the most popular dumpling house for shao long bao (siu long bao in Canto), and they’re like all over the world. I think there’s only one in the United States though, just in Arcadia. But anyways, we went there because one girl had a bunch of coupons for it, and you NEED coupons to eat there cuz it’s so DANG expensive. It was good though. We had two types of noodles – one with spicy peanut sauce and one with soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil (I think..this is just from my analysis of the taste). And we of course had shao long bao, and other dumplings (one w/ rice and one w/ vegetables). For dessert we ordered dumplings with taro and some w/ red bean in it. It was interesting…though I think I’d like to stick with dumplings for dinner. Anyways, the total bill came out to 505 yuan, which is about $73, for 10 of us. That doesn’t sound like a lot in USD, but that’s A LOT here in China, considering you can get a FULL meal for $1 or less. But anyways, the girl used her coupons (she had 7 of them), and the bill was still 305 yuan, so each of us paid 30.5 yuan (about $4). Still kinda expensive…but it was ok. It was a pretty good meal.
After that, we walked around the area (the picture of the pagoda-looking buildings) and shopped a little bit. I wanted to look around more, but we were only given an hour and everyone wanted to eat shaved ice…so we ended up eating for like 45 mins and walking around for only 15. And I didn’t even get to buy anything…we really only looked at like one aisle of stores, and this place was huge. I wish we could’ve stayed longer…I feel like there’s a lot of good shopping in China at all these places we keep going to, but I never find the stuff I want because everyone else is too busy eating or taking too long to shop at their stores. Sigh.
Anyways, tomorrow is the total solar eclipse. It’s a huge deal here, because Shanghai is supposed to be the best place to see it from and this solar eclipse is like the longest in the whole century because it lasts 6.5 minutes or something. We have to buy special glasses to look at it too (duh, otherwise our eyes would be fried). Apparently people are flying in from all over the world just to watch it. But I’m worried, because the forecast is supposed to be overcast tomorrow -__-- But the eclipse is supposed to happen at 9:30am, so hopefully it won’t be overcast yet. I’m meeting with my MMK team (again :)) to watch it with them. They’re so fun! I love hanging out with them. We’re meeting at 8:10am though… -___-- and then at 10:30, we have class. YUP, we even have class on the day of a historical eclipse. BOO.
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