wow... China is cheap... and more epiphanies

So today, was again another pretty low key day. I figured today was a good day to take care of some business. After waking up insanely early, then going back to sleep until about noon, I decided that today would be a good day to handle one piece of important business... GLASSES! In order to properly shop for glasses, one must begin the day with a dim sum breakfast. This dim sum restaurant was the cleanest Chinese restaurant that I've been in. So after filling our bellies, Durrell and I took a trip out to some place where they had a lot of glasses. Now while my indecisiveness and lack of coherent sentences again made for an awkward interaction with the lady trying to sell me glasses, I eventually found two pairs of prescriptions and paid 336rmb which roughly translates into about $50 USD.

Afterwards I met up with Lovely Luci (I think I'm goin call her that from now on, it just rolls so smooth off the tongue) and we went to get some massages. Now when you think about full body massages for an hour and a half for two people you would think that you'd be lucky to pay $100 USD per person. So we paid 450rmb at a real high class looking place (not the whole in the wall I was looking for) and afterwards they fed us for no extra price. So let's think about this, massage for an hour and a half, and dinner for 2 for about $65 USD. I'm not goin to lie, I was kind of upset because I thought we overpaid (seriously). The massage was like a soft deep tissue and I think I'm kind of sore, but more in shock that the little lady could work with her hands for that long like that. I'm also not 100% sure I liked it, I'll let the world know tomorrow.

We then ventured to a bar to watch the US basketball team play China. Today was the first time that I saw the great mother china propaganda, (just for the record, I think that it is awesome that China goes out of the way to inform people in English how great they are and how the rest of the world is either afraid of them or they don't understand them) Other than that it was slightly disappointing seeing the US hoop team only win by 30 something. Another funny story was watching how in the American filled bar everyone was slightly afraid to chant USA... which I don't understand because the "mother" is so nice, accepting and caring! I LOVE CHINA


Thoughts...

1. Sarah- so guess what I found a pipa!

2. Sabrina- Hesitate and Die takes on a whole new meaning here... I literally almost die every time I hesitate... WHEN BOY MEETS GIRL WEDDINGS AND SPECIAL EVENTS

3. I have no idea what day it is in the US

4. Having insomnia and an irregular sleep schedule in general means that the word jetlag doesn't exist in my vocabulary

5. If you pretend like you like something then walk away, they lower the price to what it should be in the first place, but understand that they will physically grab you

6. I'm not sure if there is much better than the "Beijing Belly Stance", I think I'm goin to devote a whole day to photographically documenting the Beijing Belly Stance and things that don't translate right like "baby rape soup"

7. I've realized that the more densely populated an area is, the less people care about "common courtesies" In Beijing there is no such thing as a line, and people don't say hi how ya doin to randoms and you don't say excuse me when you walk over people. (again I'll go into more detail in another entry)

8. I love how you yell "waitress" across a restaurant in order to get their attention to give you something... I'm going to do that in the next Chinese restaurant I go to in the US

9. Apparently American kids aren't that special... Chinese kids also have smart mouths

10. Tomorrow will be my first weekday without my travel buddy... I hope that she is having a good time!