Day 3: April 25th

Today, Jessica slept in, so Alex and I, still jet lagged and waking up at ungodly early hours of the day, went out for a walk. We checked out the small convenience store within the enclosure of the apartment building for breakfast, and a few things I forgot/didn't bother to pack. Breakfast went well, because an orange is an orange, even in China. My random small stuff however, less successful. I ended up buying body lotion instead of shampoo. Stupid Chinese characters, and misleading shelving. Head and Shoulders was right above the lotion I bought. Same display, two similar but different products. Boo-urns.

Alex and I then went off exploring outside of the enclosure. We stopped at another convenience store, this one a Kude (aka, Chinese Kwik-e-mart), to buy shaving cream, my last purchase needed for a much needed shave. However, we couldn't find the shaving cream, so I went up and acted it out to the lady at the cash register. It eventually got through, between Alex and I acting it out, but I don't think Chinese people should play charades. They suck at it.

We then went to a back road, which showed me my first taste of how quickly the income average fluctuates in China. We went from a nice, clean area, to a very dirty, poor area, all in a few steps. We got the typical stares and occasional "laowhy" comment, but didn't buy anything. I was too busy struggling with peeling my orange to deal with it. Eventually, we turned around and returned to the apartment, as we figured Jessica would be awake now.

We got back, and we all chilled and ate breakfast. Jordana showed up briefly during lunch and chatted with us before going back to work for the rest of the day. We had a hell of a time getting a hold of Dan, Jessica and Alex's soon-to-be boss at Hy-lite, to see when we'd be house hunting, and the eventual decision was to put us in a hotel for the night. Alma was still sick. However, they wouldn't give us the directions, or even the name of the hotel. Instead, we had to drag all our luggage to Hy-lite, and they'd direct us to the hotel. It was all so unnecessarily complicated, especially after Hy-lite left me behind, and took two cabs to the hotel. Why was it unnecessary? It was on the same street as Hy-lite, and only a 2 minute walk. Two cabs. This was warning number one to me that Hy-lite is going to be massively unorganized.

Once settled into the hotel, we crashed. Jet lag is a bitch.