June 20

In class today we found out that we have a test on Friday. Awesome.

After class, Frank, Jenny, and myself headed over to the Superbrands Mall (for the third time). We had lunch at Thai Thai, which is in the food court, but is also mentioned in out guidebook as being decent fast food Thai, and it was. Then we took another cab to the cloth market.







When we were in Beijing a lot of people had suits and shirts custom made, but I really didn’t want to spend the money on a suit (great a price as it would be, I already have 4 or 5). I had considered shirts, but figured that since I’d be in China for a whole month, I could probably find them elsewhere if I decided I wanted them. Well, I decided I wanted them. I tend to have trouble with button ups staying buttoned, so I figured a custom made shirt would be nice. So we rode to the cloth market, and I picked a booth that had shirts I liked (basic button up) and picked out three fabrics (white, navy, and a pinkish color) and got measured. The shirts are going to be 70 yuan a piece (roughly $10 each) and I can pick them up on Friday.

While at the cloth market, we had a celebrity sighting!! If you are familiar with the now-cancelled series Firefly, or the movie Serenity, you may recognize this guy. I’m a little pink, because I was completely embarrassed in asking for a picture. But he was perfectly nice, and even took the one armed shot himself, stating he “was a professional”. If only he knew how much of a pro I am at the one armed shot as well.



His name is Nathan Fillion, and he played Captain Mal. Frank saw him walk by, and then spoke to him a little later. He’s in town for the Shanghai Film Festival. We spoke to him for a few minutes, suggested a bar/restaurant we had really enjoyed, and met what I assumed to be his girlfriend.

As for our own dinner, we were planning on going to this restaurant called Afandi, which is Middle Eastern. Unfortunately, both of our taxis did not end up at the same place. While we were waiting for the others to arrive, we took a look at the menu. There was no English, but plenty of pictures, and a large number of dishes appeared to be animals floating in bowls. Mostly fish, but there was an entire turtle in one bowl, and another had what could have easily been an iguana. That turned us off a bit, and the fact that we couldn’t communicate to ask what the other dishes were. And people in the other taxi still hadn’t shown up, so we ended up walking out. We found our friends down the street (their driver just dropped them off and pointed a direction) and we settled on another restaurant that had kebabs and naan. It seemed promising, but ended up a disappointment. Nothing was horrible, but nothing was great, and I ended up losing my appetite. Not the end of the world though.

Back at the hotel I watched So You Think You Can Dance episodes on YouTube (it’s a reality show/dance competition that I’m missing) and ate a cream cheese filled pastry that Jenny brought me. I also drank several orange juice-pineapple juice-vodka drinks, since there’s only a few days left to finish the huge bottle of Absolut that we bought duty free in the airport.