Jiangmen with Flower

Yes, Flower's her name. Our apartment building is owned by the school and its where a lot of the teachers live. We've gotten to know quite a few of them and they are SO nice. A lot of them are in their early 20's. Flower is our neighbor across the hall who lives in 704. She is SOO nice and so much fun. A lot of them come over and just hang out with us because they love having american friends. We love that we finally made friends with the teachers. The first couple of months were crazy so we never really got to talk and make friends with the teachers.

So when Chantelle and me went to Beijing Callie went on a day trip with Flower and Apple (one of our kid's teachers, she's way fun too) and some other teachers all went to Jiangmen. Flower went to school there and theres amazing shopping. So since we werent here for that Flower promised that she would take us sometime. So this week we got Thursday and Friday off for May Day and Youth Days, which rocked. So yesterday we hopped on an overcrowded bus, hopped on another overcrowded bus and went to Jiangmen.

First we stopped and Flower showed us where she went to school. And then she took us to this little stand place that makes this hand tossed bisquits. They were AMAZING. They fry up and flatten this dough so its kind of like a crepe, but thicker and then we ordered ours with an egg so they put them onto it and then they put mayo and ketchup on it and wrap it up. SOO good. I could've eaten a billion of them. Its a good thing they dont have those here in guzhen or else i think i would eat them all the time. But its okay cause they were only 4 yuan (like 60 cents). SO cheap! Then we headed to real Jiangmen. Yeah. Theres a lot of shopping. Every building is just clothes shop after shoe shop after clothes shop. Its crazy. At first it was outdoors and oh my goodness were there a lot of people. I don't think I can adequately put into words how crowded it was. It was the first time since I've been here that it has felt like there are too many people in China. It was seriously ridiculous trying to make our way through the crowds. But we got out safe enough. It was so funny Flower was so worried we'd get swept away and lost. It didnt help that people would just stop around us and stare either.

lady frying bisquits

crowded


This is a pile of sugar cane shavings. we bought a very little cup of pure sugar cane juice. I don't know how they can drink that kind of stuff but think jam is too sweet. Flower downed hers.

We went to this mall like place first, stopped at a couple of shoe stores (which actually make me angry and a little depressed because theres all of these really cute cheap shoes, cheap as in 15 yuan (a little more than $2) and i would buy them all except for my disgusting big feet.) Then we stopped at a couple of clothes stores and actually found some stuff our size. haha. Then Flower took us to this really cute place to eat for lunch. She called it a salad place, but they don't do salad here in China. By salad, they mean fruit salad. But they had other things like pastas and sandwiches. It was really really good. We ordered a couple of fruit salads, which is cut up fruit covered in this sweet mayo dressing stuff. Flower and me ordered these amazing chicken sandwiches, and Chantelle and me got these strawberry blended ice drinks, Jae got mango and this noodle dish. It was really quite delectable.

lunch

Then for the rest of the day we went around from building to building from little shop to little shop to little shop. It was such a fun day. Chinese girls are funny when shopping so much depends on their friends opinions. So like we go a little ways away and Flower would come find us and say "I was trying to find you! What do you think." So much fun. It was just a nice little girls day out in China. Flower ended up buying 2 pairs of shoes and like 3 shirts. And a bunch of other little things.

So we set out around 11 o'clock this morning and by about 6-ish our feet ached pretty bad so we figured it was a good time to go home. So we go and catch a bus (which was one of the most crowded buses yet) and we go to this bus station to catch one to Guzhen. (You can take buses from a bus station or there are tons that just run all over the city, how you know where to stand or which one goes where I have no clue how you would even begin to figure it out) So we get to this bus station, oh and before we caught the first bus it started raining, mind you the whole day it had been gross and hot so we're just a little perplexed on what mr. weather man was thinking. So we get to the bus station and its pouring and we have one umbrella between the 4 of us. So we go inside and all the tickets are sold out, to Guzhen, to Xiaolan, to Xiqi everywhere close. So we're like crap. What do we do. So we go and catch a bus that takes us back to Flower's school and we're hoping theres a bus that runs back to Guzhen. Its dark by this time and the bus driver said if the bus would come it'd be on the other side of the road so we go and stand on this puddled corner all four of us under one umbrella and we waited for about 40 minutes in the rain until we figured the bus isnt coming. So Flower said we might have to take motor taxis home, which is an idea i'm not liking so much seeing as I wore a skirt that day and i dont feel like getting soaked. But thankfully we found a taxi that was cheaper than if we would've ridden motor taxis and we all got home safe and well and thanked Flower for the awesome day.

Then we planned on having a movie night, Chantelle and me preparing by buying a bunch of junk food the previous day (oreos, steamed rolls, bakery goods, and chocolate soy milk). So we sat back and relaxed and watched Enchanted and Nacho Libre. So May Day was a successful fun girls day out. ♥