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Published: June 14th 2010
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Today is tuesday. I'm staying inside all day or trying to at least. Zoey the lady who runs the internships in Shanghai may drag me out for lunch or dinner. I had dim sum for lunch when i woke up. They are weird rice bread balls with custard in the middle. I would never eat them in the US but here they seem like one of the better options because i didn't know what kind of microwave food was good to buy last night. So the second, third, and fifth day i was here i went out with Dennis or something like that.
The other day, my whole experience in China changed. I bought a towel and lots of chocolate. I haven't been eating as much chocolate as normal and was really missing it. The towel, although it doesn't sound like much was really a key to my comfort here and feels like the gab between staying here permanently (civilization) and temporarily living out of my suitcase. So last time i wrote, i was going to move in with Dennis when his girlfriend returned to the states on saturday. Well she didn't return to the states. She lost her money on
the ticket because she arrived 50 minutes before her plane took off. They do not allow you to check in less than an hour before her flight. I couldn't believe it, but they said there was another couple that was trapped here too. I saw her on sunday when i went over there to do my laundry. I'm very happy that i did not have to do it by hand. I also met the other two roommates. They are both really nice german guys. I could understand part of the conversation one of the guys had on his phone. I was really surprised. I've also met four german girls in the street on three separate occasions and one german guy in a bar. I've met more germans than americans here. I'm afraid I'll go to germany and realize that it's filled with Turks, not Germans! Ha ha ha!
Anyways, his girlfriend is having her family put more money in an account for her to buy another plane ticket back. She's trying to leave as soon as possible because her has family visiting in the US, but she said on sunday that she may not be able to get a plane
ticket until wednesday (tomorrow). They went to the US consulate yesterday. When she leaves, i'll go move in with dennis and begin sleeping on his couch. He leaves next week and then i'll move into his room. :-)
Yesterday Peggy introduced me to her friend Miller and we eat at a really expensive restaurant. We bought a 140 yuan burger. It's four pounds and if you can eat the whole thing by yourself, it's free. I went there obviously wanting to do the challenge, but when we arrive we saw the burger and it was very obvious that i would not be able to complete the challenge. If my stomach was cut open and all my intestine removed, the burger still would not have fit. I took several pictures. The three of us shared a burger and couldn't even eat the whole thing. They both really like vegetables and left me almost all the meat (Chinese people don't like beef or they aren't accustomed to having more than than two or three bites :-).
Afterward, we went to an old area of china that is popular for tourists. Peggy said that she was born in a place like that. I
thought it was awesome but she didn't like it. She said that really shanghainese (people born in shanghai) will never go there because it is where they came from. Since there the government has destroyed most of these neighborhoods and erected either 6 or 30 floor apartment buildings. the bottom floor is usually small shops. due to this style of building, it's very normal for there to be many small shops and very few super markets. everyone also competes by pricing their products according to cost with a very small yuan mark up. This means that it is very obvious when a product is imported because it will be 30 yuan more. the cheapest bottles of liquors will be around 5 yuan($0.75), but the cheapest foreign liquors start at 35 yuan ($5). Chocolate is usually around 5 yuan and the important chocolate is at least 10 yuan.
Afterward we went to Miller's house. I was impressed by all of the very expensive wood furniture in his house, but he and peggy told me it was very cheap. When we entered we took our shoes off and donned slippers. we had yellow melon which was a sourer version of honey dew
and delicious, but i couldn't eat any because i was still full from lunch. i also saw some chinese television which was really cool and met his mom. she was very nice. there was, of course, a door to enter the kitchen. it is very popular in china for businesses to use residential apartments which is a little scary because in some normal apartments, there will be a second steel security door in front of the normal door.
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Momma
non-member comment
interesting
Those were interesting pictures of the grocery store.. Some stuff I didn't know what it was. I wouldn't know what to buy that would taste good. Some hard choices there. What is pika?