wo yao...stop here...?

It's been another exciting day in Zhongshan. We taught as usual, but after classes, Sparky (our bus driver for the school) took us to the travel agency. This is where our noteworthy items begin.
While waiting for Jillian to go in and check train ticket prices, Abby and I were singing to my iPod. We realized that about a hundred Chinese people in a line in front of the agency were staring at us. We are advised to only do things that the locals would do, but couldn't resist this time. So we played into it a bit and starting singing Dixie Chicks "Ready to Run," including harmony, quite loudly. Sarah took a video of all the people who were completely infatuated with us. I don't even think they were amused by it-they were just looking at us like we were insane. But we enjoyed it.
After running away from that little scenario (and I mean that literally), we were walking down the street and all of us were laughing about the weird look I got from two girls that looked me up and down when an older man looked at me. This was not just the normal look that we get here. He was squinting at me and craning his neck. Quite vehemently. I guess they don't see many tall girls with fros over here.
Jaimie, Abby, and I decided to go to Jusco (a Japanese supermarket downtown) so we hopped on the bus shortly after. After riding a few stops, we realized that we were across the street from Jusco and should have gotten off the bus, but didn't. We decided to just hope there was another stop before the huge bridge. There wasn't. So we got all the way to Walking Street! We got off the bus at the last stop and then got right back on. We really need to learn how to say stop in Mandarin.
Let me just tell you a bit about Jusco. It's like a Chinese Costco where they don't make you buy in bulk. It is heaven. I thought I was going to start crying in the store because I was so happy. We're talking TONS of beautiful produce, cheese, fresh sushi (for 1 yuan a piece), SKIM milk, butter, peanut butter, kiwi Pringles, mugs with great Engrish...anything you can't find anywhere else in China-within reason. It's almost overwhelming.
After taking in all of the first floor (the grocery), we went to the third floor-house items. We found the scales and asked one of the employees if we could use it. I was entirely expecting her to say no and that we'd need to buy it, but she didn't! She even put batteries in it for us to use it! After we weighed ourselves and started walking away the two women who worked there stepped on the scale and started laughing. I caught a glimpse of the screen with their weight...they weighed about half of us. That's why they were laughing. Good news is I haven't gained more than one or two pounds. I was expecting to gain a little at first because of all the novelty and little anecdotes which usually go something like this: "Is that coconut bread?" "I don't know but it looks delectable! Let's get it and eat the whole loaf!"
On the way back to Kaiyin, Abby's pineapple tray spilled in her bag so now it smells like pineapple. I'm thinking maybe I should pour fruit in the purse I got from Walking Street. It does not have a desirable purse scent. But it should be better now that Abby bathed it in Lysol and then I poured perfume in it. We'll just have to see in the morning!

Pictures are on their way :)

Oh, I also got to name two kids at school. They already had names obviously, but when they start learning English, they get to choose an English name. If they're older, they get to choose it themselves. But these kids were too young so I picked names for them! The little girl is Ellie and the boy Epic, thanks to a good friend who hopefully doesn't mind that I borrowed the name.