Sunday afternoon

Hi Again:

In spite of Burt thinking we were going to cab all the way today,we actually took a jitney to the main street and then we walked to a large shopping mall in 90+ degree weather and 90+ humidity so once again if you touch me, you'll stick to me!

We had a fabulous lunch at a restaurant called the BullFighter. It looks like it's a franchise with venues all over China as near as we could tell.

We had the fixed price dinner for 2 188 rmb (about $28). We started with a salad bar, then we had 2 different kinds of soup (seafood chowder and beef vegetable), and a delicious appetizer of mushrooms in escargot sauce then we had triple entree.....a small tenderloin steak as good as Morton's, sole with a Japanese sauce and a stuffed crab. Burt also had ice cream and coffee and I paid 22 extra yuan ($2.50) for the BEST mango smoothie I've ever had. Lots of soft mangoe ice cream and whatever else they put in a smoothie. Needless to say Burt had 1/2 my smoothie which I shared willingly cuz it was huge. We're definitely going back to the restaurant again only this time I will get only steak.

We also saw a Japanese restaurant in the same area which looked good so we'll try it also.

Then we shopped for a change but this time it was all for Burt. I had seen men's shoes for about $10 each in some small shops across the street from the mall but as we were walking through a dept. store after lunch/dinner we spotted men's shoes on sale for about $20 each. Burt bought a pair of sandals and a pair of loafers and it's a good thing he did cuz we walked about a mile after that and I couldn't find the small shops I had been in on Thursday.

I am really shopped out except for a few small items but we still are going to have 3,000 more yuans to spend next week so we'll see..... We can hopefully cash them in once we get back in the States but for a big penalty.

We also brought one of the watches to be repaired. And as I struggled to explain what I needed, a young woman came up to me and offered to help. She took us to a watch repair place and they replaced the battery. Unfortunately an hour later the watch stopped again. What do I want for about $5/watch!!!

It's really fun going out without a TA to translate for us. Anyone who speaks any English at all when they hear us struggling offers to help.

And then Friday I met a lovely young woman in the lobby of our hotel. She is the TA to a woman who is not very gracious and it is too hot in her dorm for her to go back between classes so she just sits in our lobby for the 3 hours between class. Starting on Monday I'm going to have her come up to our room to relax. She gave me her cell phone number in case I needed any assistance. And today when the cabdriver cou ldn't understand the card we gave him to get us back to the hotel I called "Hugo" and she gave him directions and back we came!!!

Talk to you all again soon.

Love from us