Sunday, March 19, 2017

This Weekend

On Friday night we, as in Monica, Andrew, Rachel, Spencer, Petro, Shey, Bailey, and I, went to Andrew's favorite fried dumpling place for dinner.  It was insanely delicious!  I have really started to love Chinese food and we are getting to a point where we have found some seriously delicious stuff.  Dumplings are my favorite (especially fried!) and I just crave hot pot all the days!

After dinner we went to the movie theater to see Beauty and the Beast which was just released that day!  The theater was practically empty, and it was only 3 American dollars per ticket.  Can you believe that?!  Not to mention it was 3D!  And in English!

We LOVED the movie.  Every single one of us - even Bailey was gushing about it!  It is probably one of my very favorite movies now.  I already want to go back and see it!


We had big plans for Saturday - we were going to get up early and head to Wuxi.  But, Petro came down with something horrible, so we decided we should go another week.  Left with a Saturday to kill, Bailey and I decided to go to the market!  You know, after getting some lunch.  We went to a typical Chinese fast food place that had dumplings, meat on sticks, and soup.  It was all so good!  Except for the fact that my soup was full of tripe.  Picture menus are not the best way to get what you want (or don't want).


The market in Changzhou is great because vendors don't attack you and things are cheaper because tourists don't go there.  We spent hours there, picking up souvenirs for family and some fun things for ourselves.

That night we headed to Shanghai because we had already booked a hostel there so why not use it?  We got to Shanghai at about 10:30pm and Bailey was starving!  For being the biggest city in the world, you'd think more restaurants would be open a little later than 10:30.  The only place we could find that was open was an expensive Italian place on The Bund.

Oh my goodness, you'd think we'd just walked into a restaurant in Europe!  No Asians to be seen except for the waiter who approached us with a perfect Italian accent.  Still confused about that one.  Everywhere there were fancy people in their stilettos and fur scarves, sipping their wine and laughing with their equally classy friends.  We were a little nervous to see the prices, but Bailey's stomach (actually his hangriness, to be honest) could not wait a moment longer.  We were seated and were happy to find that each dish would be about $20-$25 - a lot cheaper than an American restaurant of that class would be!

Oh my goodness that food was worth every penny.  They first brought out bread, which was the best bread I've ever eaten and I really don't think I'm saying that because of my current bread deficiency.  There was bread with a cooked tomato on top, some garlic breadsticks, and some bread with chopped cucumber and tomato or something.  Each piece was perfectly toasted, and with that herb oil they gave us... oh my goodness.  And our pasta!  I got truffle cream ravioli and Bailey got penne with truffles and sausage.  It was handmade pasta and the best we've ever had.  To finish off our meal they brought us little handmade chocolate truffles, and offered us shots on the house.  Of course, we didn't take the shots but should have asked if our water could be on the house - we got the receipt and they had charged us $10 for the water!

So, the dinner was definitely more expensive than we like to spend in China (when you could get a giant wrap at the night market for less than $1!) but what an experience.  I mean, I didn't even take a picture, I was so into the food.  Honestly, I'd go back!

We hit the hostel after that and spent the night, getting up in the morning to head to district conference.  While I was getting ready, a Chinese guy at the sink in the bathroom mistook me as his classmate.  So that's a new one.

We went to conference and it was amazing.  There were some really good talks!  After that we promptly broke the Sabbath (still trying to figure out how to keep the Sabbath day holy and travel at the same time...) and got some lunch at a place Monica and Andrew recommended.  We ate spaghetti which wasn't really like spaghetti but still good, and some pizza that I loved!  You know, I think combination pizza should always have squid on it!

After that we went to the fabric market to pick up Bailey's suits and order a couple more shirts for him.  He just loves the fabric market, and I love seeing him so excited!  We made sure that his suits were perfect, and then got a bullet train back home.


Once home I had Bailey try on his suits.  Isn't he handsome!?  Don't mind our mess...



Though it wasn't as eventful of a weekend as usual, it was very good for us to take it a little slower.  We get pretty tired these days!  But we are learning so much about traveling like - make sure you have lots of snacks and eat lots every meal because hangriness is a true issue - and - do your transportation during the day even though it seems like a waste of travel time.  Because getting to your destination after dark causes a lot more anxiety than it needs to!  We are a month and a week into our adventures, and we hope that by the time we return home we will be expert travelers!

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