Escaped Catfish

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Today we went to the Yellow Dragon River. I expected to get on a little boat and float down a huge river for a few good hours, so we packed on the bug spray. When we got there it was a completely different scene, the Yellow Dragon River is a tourist area with traditional Chinese decorations everywhere, and a beautiful manmade river in the middle of it. You can walk in or around the river and there are tons of little shops extending for at least a mile. Little kids buy water guns and shoot the people standing in the river. When we got there women came up to us with flowered head bands that EVERYONE there was wearing...so obviously we couldn't reisist buying them. We were a tourist attraction as well, at least 6 different groups of people asked to take our picture today, and then there were the stealthy people who did it while we were not watching. There were snack stands nearby selling everything from peanut brittle (they LOVE peanuts here) to tiny fried crabs. Restaurants had two to three foot bowls of water out front with fish just casually swimming in them. We actually watched a catfish LEAP out of the bowl and start slithering towards us on the street. I didn't know the words for "Your fish is running away" so we just made commotion until a lady scooped it up in a basket, put it back and the pool and pretended nothing ever happened.

After about 2 hours we realized the flower headbands were very appealing to bees, so that was fun. Also dogs are allowed everywhere. They go literally wherever their owners go, no exception. We got the most comfortable silk robes and have been wearing them around all day, which I will absolutely continue to do back home (just a warning to my roommates). People asked us if we wanted a fish foot massage, and one boy did it, he said tiny fish swam around and just nibbled on his feet. Overall the street was SO much fun, and you could find some of the weirdest stuff there.

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