day 16! shida

Oh boy. Possibly my shortest post yet.

It rained and rained and rained today. Rained all morning. I will use that as my excuse, instead of laziness, for why I didn't go do anything at all today. :) Plus my eyes were kinda swollen and tired and it made me nap lots.

Michael has gotten used to going out and finding lunch on his own. :( I do feel a little bad for ditching him but on the other hand I'm not gonna feel obligated to get ready and go out to find food I don't feel like eating. I'd just be grumpy and sullen anyway.

Well so when it finally stops raining and I crawl outta bed, it's super late. ^^;; Dinnertime!

We decided (well, I decided) to go back to Shida. That's the area I went to with Jennifer Kevin and mom for lunch, but there wasn't much stuff open? It used to be one of the biggest night markets but we found out that it got shut down, due to it being illegal and some tenants complaining about the noise. It's located between two big universities, so it's full of college students. I'm bummed!! I would've liked to see it in it's former glory. As it is there are still quite a few shops there, and a lot of people going through every night.

It's only one stop away from us so we coulda just walked but....our track record for finding places has been shitty at best lol. So we metro'ed over.

Ravenous at this point, so I stopped to get a baozi from this store. Shida (one of the universities) has a language program of some sort, so there are a ton of foreigners in the area, studying abroad and learning Chinese. If you look at their menu, you can see that all the different options are translated....and at the Shida market, most of the stand/cart employees will say something in Chinese, and a split second later, after seeing your millisecond of hesitation/processing translation, will repeat it in English. Just simple things, but it goes to show how many foreigners go through there I guess. :)

The baozi was reaaaaaally good. It was 20yuan, which is maybe 75 cents. Really filling, really hot. :o

Michael wanted to stop at this "steak" place. I spose it's expensive for night market food standards, but still pretty cheap.

Worth $5? Didn't feel like trying any so I dunno.

Oh so my stupid camera focused on the wrong thing in this pic, so it's gonna be hard to see what I'm talking about. Actually it's pretty smart -- I think normally one would be zooming in on the food in the forefront rather than the people in the background, but I had to make it look like I was taking pics of a food so I didn't get glared at for being a weirdo. -_-;;

So I was TRYING to take pics of that girl in the background with white hair. I know it looks like an old guy drinking soup but BEAR WITH ME. She was actually super cool looking, had on glasses and a cap, and this crazy grey/white dyed hair. Piercing under her lip. Plaid shirt and kinda baggy but fitted pants. She totally looked like a dude, but you can see from her face and her voice that it's a girl? I dunno!! I loved her look. Michael was not as impressed. We got into a debate about how appealing it is for girls to look like guys. I spose it's no secret that I really like that look/style. :) Maybe it's from being surrounded by guys at work, with friends, in school, and from games, but.....I've always sort of wished I was one. Or at least, you admire certain characteristics about them I guess. And I've always thought that you could fit in a little better if you looked more like one :) So I really like girls with a super skinny frame, no boobs, no hips...........basically looking just like a guy haha. Or even if they do have curves, very subtle ones. I just think it's super super cute and I'm envious of it cuz of my dumb childbirthing hips. But Michael's thought was, if you're gonna be shaped just like a guy and dress like a guy why not just BE a guy. It's a valid point but...I don't know. I don't think I'd want to give up being a girl. I used to hate it but I've come to embrace it I guess. That said, I still envy people that can be girls, but are somewhat closer to the guy end of the spectrum. :) Anyway. Thought she was cool.

While Michael had his steak, I found another one of those guabao stands. :3 This one was manned by a huge douchebag but oh well. Got the goods. Yum! Sooooo filling.

Saw some colorful graffiti. Made us laugh a lil.

And then home. :) Haha I wish I were more expansive on what I took pics of. I know from this blog it looks like all we do is eat and then go home and sleep and wait til the next day of eating but...that's cuz when we're walking around shopping in between, I'm SHOPPING and not taking pics of random things. :) I will make a conscious effort to do more of that stuff though. Like we must have been here for an hour or two, but all you guys get to see is 5 pics of the food we had. :p lol.

Anyway. :) Then home.