food, food and more food

This past week has been full of more wonderful, rather lazy days in Hangzhou. I have enjoyed eating at some nice restaurants, one of which is an Italian restaurant with unlimited pastries and Italian ice cream  That was basically an entire day, and I am sure that the waiters thought Michael and I had quite the sweet-tooth!
I don’t want everyone to think that I have just been eating, but the food here is interesting, and I am ready for some food at home.. so I have to inform everyone when I eat something new  Yesterday, Michael went with the guy that is teaching him how to paint (I think I mentioned this earlier), and about 3 hours later I received a phone call saying to meet them uptown. The man who makes the pictures is very nice, he bought Mike and I McDonalds and then took us to the other side of town where he sells his paintings at night. His girlfriend (who doesn’t speak English) came along, as well as her friend and we ended up going shopping while the boys “sold” paintings. I was looking at some necklaces and she offered to help me bargain.. (sometimes Chinese people rip-off foreigners). I agreed, and the next thing I knew she said, “wo son gei ni..” which means “I am giving these to you, and you can’t pay me back!” (That’s not the literal translation, but it’s what it means. As the night went on, this happened with 2 necklaces, 2 bottles of nail polish, and dinner. I can honestly say that I was SCARED to shop for once! After my stay in China, I think that I want to start giving people things all the time.. It’s so different in China. If you say “What a beautiful Umbrella..” chances are you will OWN that umbrella. I think that it is one of those “unwritten Chinese rules” where you owe them a favor later, but it’s always hard to tell!
This Thursday we are leaving for our class trip to Beijing, which is 5 days, and Michael and I are staying for an extra 5 days, so my next blog should be more exciting! Thanks for reading!