Today was another good day, but totally not productive. We went with Jesica and Kelly to Cheapu Road, where there’s TONS of shopping for really cheap, and everything is haggle-able. But it was just really stressful and I didn’t buy that much. I was super tired today again because I haven’t been getting enough sleep…so it was so difficult for me to go there, and be bombarded with SO MANY clothes and SO MANY stores. That place is TWO HUGEEEEEE BUILDINGS of clothes and stores. And they’re not like American stores where everything is nicely presented and spaced out; they’re like TINY little rooms just PAKCED with as many clothes that will fit inside. So you can imagine how difficult it is to see everything and to look through everything. And then, there are MILES of these stores. That’s right, MILES. It’s just a big old maze of these stores, with clothes and shoes and accessories and everything you could possibly think of spilling over into the walkway, so there’s almost no room to walk through. Yeah. It was just a major brain overload, and I couldn’t fully process everything, let alone decide if I wanted to buy it or not. It was a very tiring 4 hours of shopping. There was just way too much…and then if I did find something I liked, I had to bargain with the shopkeeper. So stressful. I did buy a skirt and a tank top though. The skirt was 59 yuan (= $8) and the top was 15 yuan (=$2). I probably could’ve bought more, but it was way too much for me to process.
After that, me and Joanna came back to the hotel and just FELL asleep because we were so tired. But we didn’t sleep for that long, because at 5pm, Uncle & Auntie Wu and Michael came to pick us up for dinner. They are so nice! They are so cute too…I’ve decided that they’re my adopted family in China. They take such good care of us and are so sweet…I feel so bad that I can’t speak to them. Michael knows actually a lot of English, though, so he translates for us. And Uncle & Auntie Wu make sure to speak slowly so that we can understand a little bit. Anyways, they took us to Yu Gardens for dinner (we went there with the PESI group when we ate at Din Tai Fung). We ate at a different restaurant today, though, and had tang bao! Tang bao is supposed to be very famous in Shanghai…it’s a BIG dumpling filled with soup and meat. It was really good! You stick a straw in it and drink the soup first, then you eat the outside. Heehe..it was yummy. But omgosh I ate way too much..Uncle & Auntie Wu just kept giving me and Joanna food, even though we told them we were SO full. They were so cute…they kept saying, “Eat more! Eat more!” and kept giving us food, everytime we saw there was no food on our plates. But omgoodness, I thought I was going to explode. And then talking to them was very ahrd too…they taught us so many new words so I felt like my brain was going to explode too. And it takes me so much processing to translate what they’re saying, and then respond back to them. But talking to them is improving my Chinese, I can tell. When they talk, I can understand for the most part what they are saying. I can understand a lot of it, but it’s hard for me to produce the words to respond back. But they’re very patient, so they let me stumble over my words and then they correct me. They’re such nice people… I wish I could do something in return for them. I think at the end of the month, before me and Joanna leave, we’re going to print a picture of all of us and put it in a picture frame and give it to them, and then each us of will write a letter to them (as best we can) in Chinese. Next week they want to take us out to dinner again. Hopefully my Chinese will be better by then, so I can speak to them more.
Ahh! I feel lke there isn’t enough time in a day…I’m so tired, but I still need to study my Chinese and practice writing the characters and stuff. Ai ya! Tai duo zuoye!
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