Dragon Boat Festival!

This past weekend was Dragon Boat Festival, so on Monday Chelsie and I went out to Gaobeidian for a street fair. We got a little sidetracked, but eventually we found a map that was partially in English and with the assistance of a nice Chinese man we found our way to the festival!

On our adventure, we found this statue and decided that pictures were necessary. Also worth noting is that there were small children throwing rocks off the backside of the statue at each other and yelling "Fire in the hole!!!"

There were some street performers doing cool things with wooden boards....they basically looked like big yo-yos! There was also a guy with some kind of noisemaker...

We walked by several cool little stands. They varied from painting your own masks or making your own clay beads to bobble-head dolls and really awesome homemade pottery. There were several little knick-knacks that were very Chinese-looking and lots of jewelry places. Chelsie and I both bought a bracelet!

Note: the tan hand is mine :) however being tan here is a sign of poverty because the farmers are the ones who are out in the sun and getting tan, so I'm not sure it's such a good thing.

There was an area where kids could play games...there was a dart board and also fishing! There were a bunch of little red fish set up and the kids used real fishing poles to get them! Being in this part of town also made me really grateful to live in a nice area. It was interesting to see another way of life.

After the festival we decided to go to Wudaokou, for some food and shopping. First we went to a secret little pizza place that is tucked back behind bar street and you would never find it unless you knew it was there. The pizza was DELICIOUS!!!! 

After pizza we went to Yashow which is a big bargaining market in the middle of an even bigger brand name shopping area. I got a cute dress and Chelsie got a purse! I am never going to go bargain shopping without her, she is ruthless! The lady who sold her the purse originally tried to sell it to her for 850 kuai, and Chelsie got her down to 90! I'm just too nice and I feel bad asking for lower prices...I'm assuming I will get better at it and we will become a fearsome team. We saw some people playing ping pong in a park area and we also found a pretty funny sign on the subway telling you that if your finger gets stuck in the door, it will probably bleed hahahahaha

Another fun discovery has been hot pot! It's pretty much like fondue, but the slices of meat are really thin and of course the broth and sauces are a little different. But it is very delicious and a lot cheaper than fondue! 

I am making great strides in learning Chinese! I can now say several things: I do/don't want, I want to go to Suzhoujie subway station (which is right by my apartment, so I use this to tell cabdrivers where to drop me off), yes, no, this, that, here, there, I don't know, teacher, and I also know hand signs for all the numbers 1-10.