China - Day 6

Saturday dawned and it was Valentines Day. We made plans to go to dinner Monday, but for today, we still wanted to do some things.

First, we headed to the Panjiayuan Dirt Market. This is a market that's open all week, but on the weekend people travel from all over china to bring their "antiques," fakes, jewelry, and art to sell. On the way there, we picked up some street food, little bread disks topped with lettuce, spicy sauces, egg, and chicken, and folded ike a taco. It was so yummy, but the spicy disagreed with Cody a little bit later.

Once we made it to the market, we were overwhelmed. We had meen smart and saved the majority of our money for this day, but there was so much STUFF. It was crazy, aisles and aisled of stuff spead on the ground, stalls, and shops. I ended up doing a lot of haggling, most specifically to get a large Buddah picture down from 800 yuan to 300 yuan, so about $50 (and I could have gone lower maybe, but she was a hard bargainer, and buying two Buddhas, one for 260 yuan (He originally asked 700), so about $43, and another one down from 600 yuan to 200, so $34.

It was a really cool place though, and we got quite a few things. I probably spent too much there, but that's ok. And one of the Buddhas was actually Cody's Valentines Day present, so that was really good.

After the Panjiayuan Dirt Market, we headed back to the hostel for some food, rest, and to we meet up with some of the other people at the hostel because we were going to a Kung-Fu Show. I was so excited because I had never seen one before, and it was pretty amazing, and in English too! We even bought some luggage there. I know, it's strange, but we needed luggage and they
had some nice stuff there. We ended up getting taken advantage of a little bit, but it was worth it I think. We now have Kung Fu luggage, LOL!

The Kung Fu show was really amazing, and it was in ENGLISH! There were Chinese subtitles, but I was amazed. I don't think the actors/athletes spoke English, I think most of the speaking, except singing, was recorded, but still. It was a nice surprise. The show was also different from what I expected, I thought it was just going to be a bunch of flips, kicks, and such, but it wasn't. It was actually almost a play with Kung Fu in it. They did a lot of the acrobatics and kicks and feats, but it was all worked into the story. It was really cool.

After the Kung-Fu show, and narrowly avoiding buying nun chucks from the souvenir stand, we headed back to the hostel for a couple drinks and bed.