Made in Italy

So today had been designated Shopping Day. Was a model student and did homework in the morning (I am now the master of the construction 因为...所以) before Becka and I decided to go to 中山路 (Zhong Shan Lu, Middle Mountain Road) Our journey there was a little chaotic although we did get there eventually. There was a slightly surreal moment when we drove down a street filled with cages upon cages of puppies, kittens and baby bunny rabbits. I confess Becka and I had a little OMG SO SWEEEEEEEEEET moment- which seemed to worry the other bus passengers :P We had a little browse around the area which was part of the old German town so it was little streets amongst rather dilapidated looking brick buildings. There were lots of stalls on the roadside. We didn't buy much there although Becka got a red nightdress which was so awful it was nice :P We also found a shop selling lovely tea sets and I was tempted to buy one and then reasoned it was probably better to wait a bit. I got some obligatory pirate DVDs- Prince Caspian and the Dark Knight. The quality isn't so good but then they didn't exactly cost very much :P In the end we also bought two books from a stall. Mine has a picture of a decadent western woman smoking. It looked very glamorous and thrilling but you shouldn't judge a book by its cover- after a while we deciphered the title and it seemed to mean "Wild Flaming Chicken".* Then past the fish market and a building site to 即墨路 (Jimo Lu) where we found an underground clothes market. It was all about to shut but then we found a stall selling 旗袍, qipao- traditional Chinese dresses, and of course I had to buy something so I got me a nice black one with faint gold patterns on it. It's not full length-only a shirt- but it only cost me 180 元 (18 pounds) and it looks very stylish :D We are going to go back and get proper ones- they are about 400元 and good quality. So in the end had quite a haul to add to the Louis Vuitton bag I got last night- made in Italy and only 150元 :P

I have a sneaky feeling this year is just going to be about acquiring Stuff.

My bed is now covered in crumbs as Becka and Jesse had acquired some cheesecake and 月饼 (yuebing- mooncake). The cheesecake was slightly odd and I don't like mooncake. Mooncake is a small dense cake covered in patterns with wierd stuff inside.** They have it here to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival which is in a few weeks.

Becka and I are planning a trip to 苏州 (Suzhou-city not far from Shanghai) around National Day as Ruth is going to look for a wedding dress and invited us along. I'm thinking we might as well get ours while we're there!

Wierd moment of the day: fat kid on the bus kept staring at us and then whispering to its mother and giggling. I just glared back and then mentioned to Becka how fat it was. It didn't understand.

On the bus back from 即墨路 we went on an overpass and could see some red and green fireworks nearby. They looked lovely against the setting sun.


*Actually means "Wild Turkey" I think. Which isn't really much better.
**No not THAT wierd...