this adventure called life....: November 28, just a normal weekend day in Ningbo

I decided instead of trying and failing to catch up on four months of amazingness in China maybe I should just try to record the normal day to day things as well as all the exciting adventures. Today was just a typical Saturday in Ningbo but I sadly realized that I only have 2 Saturday's left here. Which is so bittersweet. China has taught me so much about life and about myself. I just felt like here the world has endless possibilities around every corner as opposed to normal life in the states. Anyway... today.

Well first of all it was a weekend so of course we slept in until like 11:30. Then we got up and got ready slowly and we all (minus Ashlyn and Kenzie) left the apartment around 2 and walked to the bus stop where we jumped on the 330 bus. The 330 is our normal bus that can take us pretty much anywhere we want to go. We rode on the bus for around 45 minutes and then got off and walked past moon lake to get to the GouLou Mansion. We had never been before, we had just heard about it. Basically it was a really cool pedestrian street with fun shops, souvenir vendors and crazy food. It was so fun! First we found an amazing place to eat that had the most delicious dumplings I have ever had. Pork dumplings with vinegar is just so good! Plus we got our whole meal for 12 yuan which is less than 2 dollars! Then we ventured through some cool shops, there was this one store that had the most adorable baby plants and a random wall mural with a face and hand coming out of it. After that we went through the souvenir vendors and I got some cool wooden chopsticks (I have actually come to enjoy eating with chopsticks, I think I have only used a fork in China maybe around 4 times) 10 pairs of chopsticks for 30 yuan (less than 5 dollars). We looked through the rest of the vendors, a few girls got their names written out in calligraphy and at that point it started raining so we decided to start heading home. Except on the way we saw all these people with this weird food on sticks and it smelled and looked decent so we decided to try some. First we found a twisted potato on a stick, it was so so delicious! Potato on a stick is the best way to eat a potato I am sure of it. Then there was a super super long line for this weird corn thing so we figured it must be good if this many people are waiting for it in the rain. We all got one, it was the strangest thing, fried corn with this sugar stuff on it and then ketchup and some other white sauce all over it. Definitely one of the weirdest most difficult to explain tastes I have ever experienced, it wasn't bad but I'm not sure it was good either. Then we headed back to the bus and headed home, after stopping at Auchan, the grocery store, first. Then we were home and it was hot shower time, we only get hot water 1 hour per day, so we warmed up with a hot shower and then all went our separate ways into our rooms. However an hour later Mikala got a call from Kaila saying that the mouse was back. A few nights ago Kaila called Mikala screaming "MOUSE! YOU LIVED ON A FARM! YOU LIVED ON A FARM!" and we ran in there to find Kelsey and Kaila on their bed screaming with the mouse running around crazy and Mikala tried to catch it and failed and then the mouse somehow disappeared. Until the next day when they called her again screaming and we went in there again to the same thing and the mouse disappeared again. This time however after losing it again they decided to just try and wait quietly to see if it would come out and it did. They called us back in a after watching it go around the room Mikala somehow caught it in a basin! Then we had to figure out how to get it out, we decided to slip paper underneath it and then we taped the basin to the paper and voila we had a mouse trapped forever in a basin. Mikala then went and threw the whole thing into the trash and that was the end of the mousey that was having fun torturing Kelsey and Kaila. It was quite the excitement for our usually boring apartment life. And that was our Saturday.

Oh how I am going to miss China!

GouLou Mansion!

The weird mural on the outside of the store. I have no idea whats going on or why there is a unicorn but hey I'm just gonna go with it.

The most delicious dumplings I have ever found in China, and thats really saying something!

The calligraphy vendor had a book with english names and the chinese of it and he told me to look for name so I looked definitely not expecting to find it but there it was! Even spelled right!