My First Saturday in China

So after the first day of Chinese language lessons our director sent us on a mission to team up into groups of four, find dinner and haggle for a t-shirt costing no more than 5kuai. All of this sounded fairly easy and so my group members and I set out on an adventure. 

I have never in my life, had such a hard time finding a questionable t-shirt vendor in a country where street markets are so common.

After taking off down a half demolished alley we still hadn't found a vendor with t-shirts. Underwear, toilets, and shoes seemed to be very common but no t-shirts. After rounding a corner near Main Street we finally came by one, but it became immediately clear we were not getting any t-shirt for less than 5kuai lol. We haggled with the woman for about 10 minutes after which we had gotten her down to 20kuai for 4 t-shirts but we said no and walked out onto the main street. We soon returned, realizing she may have been the only T-shirt street vendor. She then raised her price to 20kuai for 1 shirt, and turned back onto the alley-way. We still had some time to kill because one of our group members was partaking in Ramadan and couldn't eat till the sun set. He was the only one brave enough to approach the pool stick wielding Chinese woman near the outdoor jimmy rigged pool tables, and thus we soon became great local entertainment.

After what was easily the longest game of pool I've ever played, and a stroll back down the alley it was dinner time! We ended up in a nice looking restaurant, which coincidentally was a hot pot! Which means there were also pictures of the food...which is handy when you don't speak Chinese...

It took a total of 5 waiters to take our order, and while it seemed like a hassle it was sure entertaining for them. They had seated us at the front table, a spectacle for everyone to behold, westerners trying to eat a meal in china. The cashier woman was especially entertained, she openly laughed and took pictures but I didn't really mind.

All in all I gotta say I still think we got the best bargain, free pool in a demolished Chinese ally-way. That experience is gunna be hard to top.