Powerlong Mall
Offered an apology to the lady that has fed me a few times last night with regard to my tipping problem. She didn’t seem interested. Trying to communicate with an app on your phone doesn’t seem like the best plan. I tried. I was sincere. Will go there again before I move to my new place.
Have I complained about living out of suitcases? Yeah, and that feeling is getting worse. Didn’t get good news today. Potentially worse news. I was asked if I wanted to move to a hotel or stay where I’m at for the moment. When I asked if it would be days or weeks I was told they didn’t know. :FacePalm: No choice but to roll with it.
Got an invite from Jaime to play basketball on Thursday with the faculty and students. Would love to do that, but not sure that we will still be here on the old campus. Regardless, I’m up for that.
Plan this morning is to rent a bike and hit the Powerlong mall. I’ve been a committed Amazon shopper for a while now which will likely make me a convert to TaoBao. That’s the Chinese equivalent. I’m told that buying clothing here can be a challenge if you’re a bigger person. I am. Not sure how I’ll feel about slipping into a 5XL shirt. I’ve got a long list of needs for the new apartment (towels, sheets, rugs, etc), but I don’t want to buy a bunch of stuff that I’ll need to transport from one place to another.
At the Powerlong Mall. Five levels of whatever you can think of. Several car dealerships on the first level. All Chinese and all electric. Tons of stores any American would recognize. Nike, Under Armor, Tommy Hilfiger, H&M, etc. Lots of jewelry shops and stores specifically for children. A large sporting goods store called Decathlon caught my eye. Browsed and checked out prices. Everything was beyond reasonable and what we would think of as low priced. Top floor was all restaurants. A few that looked like they were fairly high end places. I’ve heard of one of them called Grandma’s Home.
Here’s a gallery to see for yourself. Dodger shirt for Steve (only real Dodger fans can wear pink) and a duck store for Moira. And just for Andy D, I had a coffee at the Algebraist.
I picked a random place upstairs to eat. There was a person standing outside most of the restaurants trying to shuffle you in. I picked the one where a girl was making balloon animals. Somehow I knew this would have Moira’s approval.
Immediately saw this on the table and started to worry about what I had just gotten myself into…
After zero real communication with my waitress I was able to figure out the menu and ordering process at the table using the QR code and the Alipay app. I didn’t need to rely on cooking anything at the table myself, but it looks like it would be fun for a group. Of course you have to go through the process of taking screenshots on your phone, then using a separate app to translate everything. Eventually I realized I had picked a Japanese restaurant. I settled on a bacon wrapped appetizer, a crab sushi roll, and some saki. OMG. I loved It all, especially the sushi. Glad I remembered to take a pic before I ate it all. Rats, The cute little flower is just off to the right of the pic. I’ll add that in.
I was super thankful for the giant container of cold green tea on the table as well. Every screen I looked at had to be converted one image at a time like this…
Yeah, that’s 75 yuan, divide by about 6.5 for around $11 usd. Such a deal. By comparison the coffee was 29 yuan. Of course when I was leaving the young gal made me take the panda balloon animal. Maybe a panda? I tried to give it to the first little girl I ran across, but I’m pretty sure I just scared the crap out her and her parents being a giant white yeti monster.
The ride back on a bicycle was uneventful, except for going 180 degrees the wrong way. That lasted a good five minutes before I checked my phone map. To be expected I guess. Here’s some video of the trip back. All the major roads have the wide bike path separate from the road. On the side there’s generally either a canal or walking paths with plenty of shade and benches to relax on.
Made it back and I’m exhausted again. Heat index is well over 110 degrees, but no real hills to deal with. I’m still soaked in sweat, but that was bearable and not close to passing out like the trip across the bridge.
Ran across Richard outside sitting in a hammock. He offered to get a drink together soon. Looking forward to that.
I’ll head out later to grab some dinner and stock up on fruit, but I’m down for the day. Not sure if I’ll venture out tomorrow or not. I believe Fursey (upper school principal) is trying to put together an outing for Wednesday.