Today, we decided that as we had seen so much good shopping, we were going to do it. So we did. We toddled off to Huaihai Lu (淮海路) and hit the shops. Hard. Well, I did. I spent far too much money in H&M (but then, it's Christmas, and I got money for Christmas, and I figure it's better to spend that money on stuff for me rather than bills and other such uninteresting things). So I went to H&M and bought a lot of things. It was good. Not much else to say about that really, although I'm trying to think of interesting things.
After shopping, we went to get our hair cut. We had been waiting since we got to China, as we were scared of what they might do to our hair. See, there are two types of hairdressers in Urumqi (three really, but I figure brothels shouldn't count in this): Han hairdressers, where they only know how to cut Han hair into Han styles; and Uyghur hairdressers, where they can cut caucasian hair, but only into Uyghur styles (which are basically a short back & sides with a side parting, ALL of them). So they did our hair, which was weird. When they washed mine, they didn't do it the way one would expect (you know, a sink and water and stuff). No, rather I sat there in my chair, and he started washing my hair right there. With a little squeezy bottle of water and a rather large amount of shampoo. Apparently, it's called 干洗 (Dry wash), and it was actually quite nice, as you get a full head massage while they're doing it. Western hairdressers should start it.
Here is the result (in the style of Hello Kitty):
After that, we met Vanessa (Nikki's Chinese friend) and we went for dinner, before heading back to base to go to bed, as it was quite late, and we were leaving for Hangzhou the next day.
DAY 9: SHANGHAI -> HANGZHOU
In the morning, we wanted to go for a massage and to the foreign language bookstore, so we toddled off to find them. We got to where a recommended massage place was, but couldn't find it (we figure it closed down, that happens a lot in China). So we decided to head to the foreign languages bookstore, buy a guideboko (and some other books) and find one from that. But by the time we had finished in both the bookstores, there was no time to go for a massage, as we had to get back in time to see Francesca before she went off to work and we left for Hangzhou. So we went to Mister Donut instead, which was AMAZING. They should have that in the west.
We went back to pick up our belongings, at which point I discovered my credit card had gone walkies. Alas. I had another card with me, and Nikki had access to money too, so it was okay. We went off to Hangzhou on the train, and after arriving at our hostel, we decided to take a little walk and find some food. After a while, we stumbled across 西湖天地, a little bitty on the edge of the lake with restaurants etc. We saw an Italian, so decided to try it. After looking at the menu (and its 150 kuai dishes), we decided not to eat there. But downstairs, they had a different, cheaper menu. And live music. So we ate, and cringed at the music. One girl tried to sing "La Camisa Negra," a Spanish song, but she clearly spoke absolutely no Spanish and had never actually heard the song. It was truely awful.
DAY 10: HANGZHOU -> TANGKOU
While in Hangzhou, we decided to make an excursion to Yellow Mountain (黄山). So we got up bright and early, and toddled off to the bus. After paying far too much for the bus (90+ kuai) and eating some "bread" that tasted like vomit (probably because it had 肉松 (A weird way of treating meat) in it), we got to see some lovely Zhejiang(浙江) and Anhui(安徽) scenery. We played the game where you hold your breath when you go through a tunnel, to see if you can make it. And then the bus arrived in 汤口 (Tangkou). Outside a hotel. Which is where the fun and games began.
A little man who was really quite obnoxious immediately approached us, asked if we were staying in this hotel, and when we said we weren't, offered to take us to the bus station from where we could get the bus to the Mountain. Now, I was confused, as I thought the bus we had just got off was supposed to take us to the mountain. So we followed him, and he kept telling us that if we went to his restaurant, we could look at a map, and his wife/mother/sister kept telling us we should be cold. I informed them I was in fact, not cold, as it was really quite warm there. But no, I was cold! I should buy a coat. This carried on for the 10-15 minute walk to near his restaurant (although it felt like an eternity, because the woman said literally nothing else except that I was cold).
At this point, we had figured out that it was too late to go up the mountain, and we hadn't taken things or money to stay overnight (and everywhere was a complete rip off), so we went to the bus station to see when we could go back to Hangzhou. The next bus was in two hours, so we bought tickets, and wandered around a little in Tangkou. Which was horrible. It is a run down little dump where everyone devotes ALL their energy to trying to sell tourists crap they don't want. If half the people selling maps went into something else, ANYTHING else, the town would already be a lot better. I haven't seen the film "The Hills Have Eyes," but apparently this village was like that.
So eventually we got back, after spending considerably longer than we would have liked in
This concludes another installment of our trip (one more remains (hopefully))
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