Missing day in Shenyang
I am so sorry everyone I didn’t realize I was supposed to blog on May 30th! That is why there was a day missing :( my bad. So that was the day that we drove back from Mongolia. It was a four hour drive so most of us were sleeping on the bus ride. Especially those of us who didn’t get a good nights rest because we were cold all night and the floor was hard! (I happen to be in this category) When we arrived back in Shenyang we stopped at a square and a grocery store. The square had a huge statue of Mao and we were told many people go there at night to hang out. There is music, dancing, games, etc. It is interesting to see how highly they think of him and how many pictures and statues they have of him. The era that Mao lead had a lot of downfalls yet the people still really respect him. They believe that he really listened to the people and wanted to rid corruption in China. I am not exactly sure why he is so popular but it amazes me how people never blame him for the bad things that happened and always put the blame on someone else.
Next was the Carrefour grocery store, which was HUGE! It was like a mini mall or a bigger Sam’s Club. There were three levels and on each level were restaurants, shopping stores, and the 3rd level contained all the grocery food. They had really good prices as well; I bought a really nice duffel bag for about $20! I need to get another bag because of all the souvenirs I have bought and it still isn’t enough room for luggage. It was fun going to the grocery store because it was part of the local people’s daily life, so for once I felt like I wasn’t a tourist. Of course we still got stared at but I kind of asked for it because I wear a little black travel purse that I just realized says “American Tourist” on it. We were all excited when we got back to the university because the rest of the night was free time! We all went out to eat which was hard because no one spoke English at the restaurant. Luckily, we had along a dictionary and a little phrase book so it only took us about 15 minutes to order. After we all went to the local mall and market to do some more shopping. The clothes in the mall seemed a little more expensive and it was set up different from our malls. It is like one big department store with each store having a little area. I liked it a lot because it was easier to walk around and you didn’t have to keep walking in and out of stores. The only downside was I could never remember where stores I liked were. Some of the other students shopped on the side streets, which is like a market at night. One of the students bought something and got some counterfeit money. Luckily she realized it was fake and asked for different bills. She was able to tell because it was a 2 yuan bill, which when had never seen or heard of, and it didn’t have a picture of Mao on it. Our first tour guide in Beijing taught us this so we would know. The whole night was relaxing and we were able to just walk around the city and see what it is like at night.