taxi drivers.

Every time we go into the city we take the 30 minute bus ride, which costs 1 yuan. That is equal to about 12 cents. Then on the way home we take a taxi because the buses don’t run after 6:00. We split up and go three in one taxi. It costs us around $1.00-1.50 each to get home. Is that not the most amazing thing you have ever heard? Throw in about 5 yuan (70 cents give or take) for the most amazing noodles at the market for dinner and there you have it. Can you see why we go to the city almost every night? So fun.

The night market is unreal. So many fun vendors full of crazy food. Last night we saw live larva looking bugs that they fry up and put on a stick to eat. Yum. Then there are vendors with clothes, jewelry, and these weird key chains with a fake roll attached to them. It looks like a roll you would use as a little kid in your play kitchen. And they have faces drawn on them. For some reason whenever we pass them they point to it like we would be so excited to buy one. It’s confusing but we just laugh and walk away.

We are the only Americans in this whole city. I kid you not. People just stare for hours. We got three couples walk by and the boyfriend won’t stop staring until his girlfriend slaps him on the back out of jealousy. We are such the home-wreckers.

The market is so great at night. They have lights connecting all of the booths and it is just so hoppin. Tons of people and music and food. There is one vendor with the most deliiicious noodles I have ever had. Picture chow mien from Panda Express, but on steroids. I could eat them all day. The man knows us because we come so often and he waves really big every time he sees us coming. I am getting so good at chopsticks! We even found a man making waffles at one booth and we were so excited to find some sort of treat! They don’t have treats here. It’s a sad thing. But they do have ice cream bars at the grocery store by the check out stand so we get a lot of those.

Getting a taxi is easy because they all line up by the end of the market. We take out our addresses of our school that are in Chinese characters, point to it, and wait for a nod from the driver to see if he knows where to go. Most of the time we get a nod but sometimes they don’t know where it is so we have to find another taxi. We hop in and hope they he takes us to the right place. By now we know the route home so even if we got lost we could probably tell him where to go. Our first taxi ride home was scary because we had no idea where we were going and we were just praying he would take us to the school.

A couple nights ago I was sitting in the front seat next to the driver. Half way through the trip he turns to me and starts jabbering off in Chinese. No clue what he was saying. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and laugh a little bit. He laughs and then turns away. About a minute later he just starts cracking up! Because he was laughing, I started laughing and that just made him laugh even harder. We kept this up for a few minutes. It was seriously hilarious. I got into a full on laughing attack with a complete Asian stranger. I loved it to say the least.

This place is so interesting. Everyone needs to come here once in their lives because I cannot even explain most of it. Love you all! Zaijian!