jINhua: Exploring: Oh my gosh it's OCTOBER!

So last night I FINALLY finished marking all of my tests (I still have some assignments to mark, but at least the tests are out of the way). The kids did better than I thought they would, but I still think a lot of them are going to be disappointed (considering many of them are not happy with a 95% [I do know a few people...ahem..high school Colleen ahem, who may have also been like that] which is crazy)! This morning I got up and entered all of their grades into our "Markbook" program. Then I decided that I'd venture into town by myself. The last two days when we were in town we were in the North end, today I went to the South, which is actually where we went the first time I ever went into town during the day.

My scarves!

It is so busy in town a regular day and today seemed even crazier, I'm assuming because of the holiday. There were people EVERYWHERE! There were lots of vendors (both food and otherwise) and I was SO CLOSE to trying street food by myself, but then I chickened out (I think its a better idea to go with someone who knows what's good and what's not). I went down a random side street and found a lady selling scarves, I got 2 for 20 RMB (Which is just over 3$) which is still probably her over-charging me (they ALWAYS over charge white people.... I should have bartered but I still haven't done that here yet) but that's still SO cheap for scarves. Not that I need scarves right now, but eventually I will and they're really pretty!

Then I went to ANOTHER Amy's Coffee (its as common here as Starbucks is in Canada, even more so actually) to read the text book chapters for the new unit I have to plan, then I got bored and decided to just keep walking around again. I went to China Post to see if I could find postcards, but it was a really weird place and I couldn't find ANYTHING there lol. Meanwhile when I tried to lock my bike (finding a spot to lock your bike is so hard sometimes) I stepped in poop. What kind of poop, I will never know. Have I mentioned that babies here all of holes cut out for their bums so no matter WHERE they are when they start going they can just go and their parents just hold them out and let it fall where it may....but this was quite a bit of poop for a baby, so I think it must have been something else (too much information?).

Afterwards I went to Century Mart to get bread, chili sauce and dumplings and CHOCOLATE! I finally gave in and bought some chocolate. My friend Amanda asked if the M & Ms I took a photo of tasted the same as here and I hadn't tried them yet, so today I did and yes Amanda the exact same! YUM. I also bought some sliced cheese for one of the other teachers who is going to make us Mac and Cheese tonight, YUMMMM!!!! Love Mac and Cheese!!!

The bike ride in and out of town was interesting. I was so lost the first time we went in there when in reality it is two turns from the school to Century Mart, it couldn't be much easier! But cars are just EVERYWHERE! And honking ALL OF THE TIME!!! And at one point there's construction for over a mile and I had no choice but to be directly in the car lane, it was terrifying, but I made it!

Cute places to eat

While venturing

Vendors in EVERY nook and cranny

I should have never started with the coffee, addicted

A store that I've passed a few times and every time
I mean to take a photo

Puppies!!! If I were at home I would have pet
them, but I'm still not that brave here!

This guy was funny, they had so much stuff on the street today!

Crazy traffic today, no idea how to navigate it; like a
life-size version of frogger

It's that damn poop again!

As I walked around I chose random stores to go into
and before I noticed this sign I almost walked into this store
and then I just burst out laughing instead, I think people here think
(know?) I'm crazy!