One Blonde in a Sea of Brunettes

Sunday 8/29

    It seems like all we’ve been doing in China so far is running around, and trying to see everything we can while we’re here. Which I am definitely not opposed to because every thing is incredible. But on Sunday we got a chance to just relax! We went to the cafeteria down the street and bought a big big plate of food for only 4 kuai! Which is 50 cents! There is definitely a picture of it in my album, I had tofu, eggs with tomato and some cabbage. Afterward we went back to the beach and checked out the fort again since it was such a cool area. We ended up meeting an old man (in a Speedo of course) that told us that it was better to go swimming in the morning because the tide is low and people clean out all the trash in the water. It was definitely a lot cleaner than the day before. Then we walked around the Xiamen University gates and found a fantastic bing xia place that was so delicious! Bing xia means “ice sand” which is basically a slushy in the most amazing flavors; dragon fruit, mango, passion fruit, lychee and other really good ones.
    Afterward we figured a trip to the spa would be fun, but instead we just got our nails done. (The spa seemed a little over priced, 250 RMB which is only 36 dollars) The nail salon was a very small boutique in a building right above a grocery store outside of the school gates. The girls who did our nails were SO much fun to talk to, they were very interested in us and how long we would be staying in Xiamen. (Of course this conversation was all in Chinese.) They were also really interested in learning the colors of all the nail polish in English, we had such a good time chatting with them and learning a few new words in Chinese. It was so strange, I had no idea that pronouncing English words was so difficult. Not only that, but we only spent 15 yuan each!! That’s only $2!! They had a really cute puppy too that they named Dodo (like toto.) Afterward we went to get some lunch at a vegetarian place down the road a ways. There were only three of us so we didn’t order very much food, just 3 giant beers, noodles, spring rolls, AND mushrooms in abalone sauce! YUMM, so delicious. They whole mean cost around 40 RMB (not quite 6 dollars.) Then around the same area we found the greatest little alley way full of awesome clothes stores and I got a great pocka dot shirt for a very reasonable price.
    Later that night we went to the “mall” with Yin Hao. The street was called Zhong Shan Lu which was an open road filled with food vendors and all sorts of strange stuff, they were even selling illegal puppies (so SAD!) It made me wonder what kind of dogs they actually eat and which ones they use as pets.
When I first discovered we would be in a small town in China I figured there weren’t going to be that many great places to go and hang out but this place was so so cool. I caught a few people taking pictures and videos of me, so I posed or looked goofy just for fun. Meeting Chinese friends actually isn’t quite as hard as I thought it would be. Our classmate Sean, met a few girls while trekking up the mountain the other day and has been hanging out with them ever since. My roommate and I have met several people to have conversations with and even exchanged phone numbers with a few people. It’s seriously such an awesome experience.