Another entry in the land of silk
Hello guys! It's like 9:30 PM here and I'm dying to hit the sack but here we go:
Yesterday was the most exhausting day and we didn't even do that much, just shop. It was traumatizing.
You think you have high self-steem? Come to China and try to buy clothes. Talk about feeling fat, size L sometimes didn't fit me! I started the day being optimistic and ended it with my self-steem on the floor, tired and cranky while mentally cursing my mom. Everytime I said I liked this or that shirt she said "but we're going to China and you're buying things there!!" ...THEY DON'T FIT ME MOM!! But oh well. I could buy some shirts and a pair of black heels. Today I got some adidas pants for less than 20 dollars. WHOAH.
There's this place in Suzhou that is called Times Square.... it has expensive brands of clothes and stuff and there's this store I can't remember the name of but is where I bought most of my stuff. Anyway, I noticed that the store clerks would follow you EVERYWHERE. There were times when we had four or five people following us around, taking our stuff, asking us to let them help us, shifting this collar, buttoning that shirt, fixing that belt... it was a little frustrating, but my aunt says it's because that place doesn't sell that much because it's expensive. It strikes me as nice that they do that because in Mexico we used to have excellent service but now even in low selling stores you get treated pretty badly. Overall Chinese people are very, very nice to foreigners. My aunt says that they aren't so nice with other Chinese people but that's kind of the same in Mexico.
Here's a very important piece of advice for you all people: when and if you visit China, don't come with the mind-frame that you'll be eating dog, cat or rat or that the food is not good. The food is ORGASMIC. So good you can't keep your mouth closed. Anyone that says they came to China and didn't eat is because they didn't even try the food. Don't go to the big restaurants, try the little places lining the streets, and just because it looks weird it doesn't mean it won't taste good. Yesterday we had something that looked like white worms with many many legs and they were actually mushrooms. China has a very wide variety of mushrooms, fruits and vegetables so make sure to try them. Today we had a great meal of some beef, some weird crustaceans that tasted really good and some fish tails that were out of this world! The bread is pretty good too and my whole family has become rice addicts. When going to a restaurant ask for the tea of the house and you won't have to spend on drinks (the food is really really cheap here so it doesn't matter anyways but it's so good you'll keep shouting '"Cha!" (tea) everytime the kettle runs low). Also, if the menu doesn't have prices ask to know them first otherwise they'll charge you whatever they want (a lot!) when you finish eating; this happens in touristic places mostly.
People here aren't loud and they drive slow (although they do crazy things LOL). They go to sleep early and they like to eat a lot. Food is cheap, clothes are cheap, there's everything here! Damn, if only I spoke Chinese I could live here!! ...ah, wait. There's no Twitter....poo.
Today we visited Suzhou's Museum of Silk. It is pretty small but very facinating. There was this room that had some real size doll of a woman tending the silk worms. Imagine my shock when at closer inspection I realize the worms ARE REAL. They were eating the weeping berry tree thingy leaf (can't remember very well the name of the tree sorry). They are kind of cute for a bunch of worms.... everytime you leaned forward to watch them closer they stood on their hind legs and seemed to wave at you. "Nihao little worm!"
We also visited some Arts & Crafts Museum. Most of it included Ivory and wood carvings and some embroidery. It was raining the whole time, my hair is a mess gah!!
After the whole ordeal we went to a fruit store and there was a cat lazing on a chair and I got to pet her belly!! She tried to bite me though but she's friendlier than my baby (my cat). I miss my Kira :( (and Trinny (my other cat) too but she doesn't like me much)
GUYS GUYS GUYS. YESTERDAY I WENT INTO A STORE AND SUJU'S SORRY SORRY WAS PLAYING ON THE SPEAKERS. OH YEAH. THIS NEEDS TO BE IN CAPS!!!
I love it how Chinese people are so proud of their culture. Everywhere you see buildings and other structures with typical Chinese motives and stuff. The lamps lining the street are so beautiful, same thing goes for bus stops and bridge railings. I wish Mexico would be like that, we always want to copy whatever the U.S. does. The streets here are wide and bridges are really common. Traffic lights have the highest quality and there is a lane just for bikes and motorbikes. Streets are lined with trees and flowers of all colors, and are overall well taken care of. Makes me jealous like whoah. You can tell the Chinese like having a pretty country, nice cities, order and cleanliness. My mom is amazed at how clean is everything. I'm sad that Mexico has become such a mediocre country. We could rise from the ashes but people are more comfortable waddling through them. I love my country but it needs to wake up now and start taking care of itself.
I don't know what else to tell you guys, I should make my entries on the go and then type them hahahaha. If only I had a bag I could take my notepad! Moooom buy me one?
Ah, funny story from yesterday's dinner. Actually two stories. We went to a restaurant last night to have dinner when we realized the waitress took away our tea cups. We asked her for tea but she was trying to bring us the one that will cost you, not the house's tea so we let her leave. Then a waiter came along and we asked him for tea and he gave us some. While you can expect Chinese people to understand some English they wouldn't understand Spanish so my aunt kept saying "Disgraceful Chinese woman, stupid skinny girl keeping me away from my tea" but in Spanish. Rude as hell, and I'm so embarrassed when I think about it but it was so funny at that moment hahaha. Later on there was this American couple and then a Chinese family came into the restaurant and sat next to them. The men started smoking and the Americans kept waving the smoke "away" (the Chinese family wasn't even close enough for the smoke to get to them) until the man got mad and left and the woman left minutes later. My family and I were almost crying from laughing so hard. I don't hate all Americans but intolerant Americans are the worst, so it was pretty awesome having them be upset over other country's way of living/culture and not be able to do nothing about it.
That's all. I'm not trying to be offensive with those last two stories it was just something that happened so don't get mad at me please!
Until next time!