I had to write one more time before leaving Beijing. I had a fun day shopping today, after what I typed today I left the hotel and went back to the Wangfujie place I went the other day. A couple funny things happened. first of all, I went shopping in a dress shop and was trying on beautiful gorgeous dresses. I thought I might splurge and buy myself a dress, kind of like when I was in Spain. Well I tried on several dresses and they were all too small, the lady couldn't zip them up for me. I laughed, she laughed, we sort of bonded over the dresses not zipping up. Which I didn't think was a big deal. I figured that if I found one that I liked, we could worry about sizes later. Surely they would have more sizes in the back. Well, after the fourth dress not fitting me, and being too small to zip, I pointed at another dress I wanted to try on. The lady sliced her hand through the air and said "small" and stuck her nose up in the air and wouldn't look at me anymore. Meaning, you're too fat to wear these dresses, get out of my store. I was so hurt I almost started crying. I couldn't believe it. I guess they only have one size there, and there is no getting a bigger size if you like the dress. Whatev!
Then I bought myself a purse at a cute little purse store. I tried to use my Visa card to buy it, but they only took cash. So the lady behind the desk said that her co-worker would bring me to the bank so I could get some money to buy the purse. We started walking to the 'bank' and it's freezing out mind you. Walking walking walking walking, we walked like six blocks to an ATM machine. She brought with her the change and the purse all wrapped up. So when I got the ATM money, I gave it to her and she gave me my change and my purse. It felt like a drug deal. What stunk was that we walked the six blocks I had just walked while shopping, so I had to back track and walk all the way back to continue shopping at stores I hadn't been in yet. So on the way back, I looked down a side street, and there was a lot of lights and commotion, so I went down there. Turns out there is like a bazarre just off Wangfujie where they sell 'snacks'. Meaning scorpions on a stick. Grasshoppers, crayfish, starfish, centipedes, baby shark, snake, octopus, snails all on stick. Like the Fear Factor Minnesota State Fair. The smell was so gross. I couldn't believe it. I truly thought it was a joke, like for fun. But people were eating it! There were thousands of people there, lined up and all of them were eating this gross food. There was about a city block long of different stalls, all selling essentially the same thing, and each one had lines of ten people deep waiting to eat this gross stuff. A couple stalls were selling chicken and beef and fruit on a stick too, but mostly the yucky stuff.
Well, off to Xi'an tomorrow morning at 4am! Not sure when I'll have access to email again. Love you mom and dad, it was good to talk to you today! I'll write that in Chinese for fun:
L????????, ?????????????
This computer translates my words into ??. (Chinese)-
Wow that is cool. I hope it shows up on your computers like that.
There are such nice people on this trip with me, a lady just saw me in the computer room, and asked if I was feeling better. I said no I feel like crap and she went up to her room for some medicine for me. Her name is Lorraine. She wears a furry Dr. Zhivago hat. I love it.
Ok, guys - I love you. I'M HAVING SO MUCH FUN!
BYE
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