Visa and Shopping Fiascos

I had to get my residence permit and passport back today, so I had to skip my Culture class. Emma, Gloria, Christie and I decided to have lunch at Wang yi Wang (the "poor man's hot pot" restaurant, which is different from actual hot pot because it's less spicy) and then find a taxi to get to the visa place. The sun was shining (finally) and it was a beautiful day. Our spirits were high.

Wang yi Wang
Emma

The tables and chairs

The bowls with oil and spices


However, our day got a little worse when we tried to find a taxi. We walked to a main road, but we had no luck, so we kept walking towards another main road. Again, we had no luck. We just kept walking towards the visa place while trying to flag down a taxi but were unsuccessful. It seemed like thousands of taxis kept passing us, but every single one of them had someone in it. After about 40 minutes of walking, Emma and I decided to call Wentao and ask her which bus we should take. She told us and we tried to go to the bus station. We yelled for Christie and Gloria to join us, but it seemed like they didn't want to because they kept walking. Emma and I were walking to the station when a taxi pulls up next to us. At this point we were so ecstatic! We open the door only to find that Christie and Gloria are already sitting in it! We finally arrived to the visa place and went to get out residence permits and passports back. Jared and Caitlin had already gotten theirs so they told us we had to go upstairs, give them our receipts, go to the bank, pay, go back upstairs, give them out new receipts, and then we get our passports back with out residence permits inside. Everything went quickly and smoothly, so since we were already in the center of the city, we decided to walk to a huge shopping plaza that had a type of flea market in it that everyone had heard about. While we were on our way and once we arrived we saw thousands upon thousands of stores.

On our way to the plaza



Baozi








The Plaza
















However, these were the more expensive stores. We were in the right area, but had to walk a little further. Jared saw the building that the market was in. The market, which was small and claustrophobic, had clothes, shoes, jewelry, etc. We looked around.

The Market




As I was browsing, I lost sight of everyone and didn't know whether or not they were still in the market or had gone on to other stores. So I stood outside of the building with the market for about 5 minutes and then walked to other stores, hoping to find them. I didn't have a phone, so I couldn't call them. I went back to the building, but no one was there. By this time, I thought it was pointless to wait so I walked back to the entrance of the shopping plaza and went to where I thought people were waiting for taxis, close to the bus station. A bus stopped in front of me in which little kids were standing. They smiled and waved at me (because I'm a foreigner) so I smiled and waved back. Since no taxis came, I kept walking and found a taxi stand. A lot of people were already waiting, so the first few taxis were taken. However, one taxi stopped right by me. Some girls ran over and stood by the passenger door as if they were going to tell the driver where they were going to go. I opened the backseat door and one of the dirls tried to close it, but I just got in as the other person in the front was getting out and showed the driver the address of my apartment. The girls finally left and the driver drove me back. When I arrived back at the apartments, I ate and a short while thereafter Narry came by to ask about the break and whether we still wanted to go with him. Kevin and I told him yes but we couldn't ask Marit because she was already asleep. Narry also wanted to know if Christie wanted to come with us, but we couldn't call her because we didn't have her number. After Narry left, I went to bed.