Starting Monday, Chelsie and I vowed that this weekend would be better than last weekend. We started off with going to Tiananmen Square Monday afternoon. We didn't really do our research prior to heading out, so we weren't exactly sure what we were supposed to do there haha. I did have this little bit of info though: Tiananmen Square is the largest square in the world, it's so big that it can be seen from space. Well we cruised on through, looked in some little souvenir shops, and got a couple things along the way....
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| The only decent picture I got.... |
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| Apparently when you rub these knobs, it will bring you money and luck. I rubbed them with both hands so I could get EXTRA money and luck. I'm a thinker :) |
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| View from the back |
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We ventured out of the actual square and came across the lake that is behind the square. We heard a man calling "Yi kuai, yi kuai" which means one kuai.....and I decided to investigate just what exactly this man was selling for the meager price of one kuai. It turned out to be popsicles and I said yep, I want one. Chelsie and I both got one and enjoyed a couple rather drippy, messy, delicious banana-ish popsicles.
We wandered down the little road and found this awesome Venice-like river with houses directly on the river-front. It was awesome....I got so excited because it was so beautiful! Then we kept walking and looking for food and eventually got spit out onto a main road with businesses and little shops....
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| There were also some men fishing right outside the picture frame |
So then we kept walking and somehow ran into food street! There were many many many options and I will post a more extensive photo album when I go on a more serious trip.....but oh man there was some interesting stuff. In the picture I'm posting here you can see (or maybe can't really see) starfish, sea urchins, squid, snake, sheep intestines, sea horses, scorpions (still live and wiggling!), and a few dessert things. Chelsie and I chose some fried ice cream and "cream filled balls"....which turned out to not have anything inside them, but they put some sugar on the top and they ended up tasting vaguely like a sopapilla. Yum. Haochi!
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| Oh the many many options.... |
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| Actually pretty yummers! |
Then we kept on wandering and discovered a walking street! This is pretty much like 16th Street Mall, for you Colorado folks, and for everyone else it's a big outdoor mall where cars don't drive along the street, just a lot of pedestrian foot traffic! Off to the side, slightly hidden, was yet another food street! This was much more crowded and had a lot of other options. I was SHOCKED by how expensive the food was at both places! In Wuhan the most expensive item on food street was 10 kuai. Here, I paid 30 kuai for a thing of noodles! I think we got ripped off because we were foreigners, which sucks. We'll have to ask how much something is next time before we ask for it.
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| Other food street! |
Above is my souvenir from Tiananmen Square! I finally got one of the cool name plate things and this one has bamboo and a swan and a dragon and all sorts of cool Chinese things. They mean things like luck, wealth, happiness, health, etc. The guy told me as he was doing it but I forgot....of course.
On Tuesday Chelsie and I went to find Zig Zag, a spa that Jill and Anna had raved about. We had one heck of a time getting there, thanks to google maps. We took a bus to the middle of who knows where, tried to find the hutong that this place is located in, and finally gave up and called Herby. She looked up Zig Zag on the internet and gave us the owner's phone number who luckily speaks English. We called her and she gave a taxi driver directions to her shop. He took us to the wrong hutong, however, and we wandered through there and came upon a cute little tea shop that we will have to go back to. We called the owner again and she told us to go to the next hutong over and finally we found the shop. I'd say all our wandering and frustration was worth it. We got awesome pedicures and made appointments to go back for massages next week when Chelsie's mom is here! That night we went to Hai Di Lou: hot pot! Possibly my favorite thing to eat here in China! One of the girls from work, Vivian, went with us and helped us talk to our waiter. It was so delicious, I love hot pot. And Vivian :)
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| Vivian, Chelsie, and me! |
I also did a pretty neat-o hair do and was rather quite proud of the way it turned out (keep in mind I took this at the end of the day, so it was kinda kaputz):
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