Ganbei!

Our first full day in the city. We spent about 8 hrs just walking around. The area we're staying in is really nice but it doesn't take long to get into the heart of the city. Turns out a lot of children in the city have slits in their pants so that they can just squat and poop anytime they need to. Just thought I'd throw that one in. We were walking in a sort of open street/marketplace when we found a large group of old people dancing. A man came up to us and told us how these people dance every morning, so we joined them. Here's something you might not have known, they sell DVD's in China. We found this out on every corner of the city. We spent about an hour drinking tea in this little shop. Jasmine, green, and black tea. We went to this food court to eat lunch. Today's meal was a lot more succesful than yesterdays'. Each of us payed about 11 yuans (1 to 6.89 conversion rate) so we each ate for under 2 dollars. A girl next to me was holding her chopsticks funny and I tried to imitate her. She and her lover tried to correct me. Turns out the chinese love the joke when I grab a chopstick in each hand and shake them near my plate while making a noise that sounds like "rahw rahw rahw." I'm sure they thought I was a moron but I did this several times to the delight of many in the restraunt. The river that runs through the city may be the grossest water I"ve ever seen. I'll do just about anything but it would cost thousands to get me in that water. In one of the marketplaces we met a group of girls in their early 20's. One thought it was funny when she got my attention by touching my butt. I introduce Graham as "homo" which apparently means monkey in Chinese. They thought this was hilarious as they put their hands over their mouths and giggled. We went back to their loft where they showed us their art. We talked about it for a little while. We were saddened one hour later to find the same art in other shops. Our entire relationship with those girls was a lie. Brian made out with one of them (just joking, but seriously...). I spoke in the last update about crossing the street. We realized everytime you cross the street it's a lot like frogger. Toward the end of the day we walked through some really impoverished areas of the city. I don't want to point out the obvious, but it was tough to do. I'll turn down guys on the corners trying to sell me bootleg CD's but waking past those other people is too much at times. We did manage to find a McDonald's where Brian got his nuggets and Nathan and I each ate a double cheeseburger. Our train for Beijing leaves at around 7:30 PM tomorrow (Friday).