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"Shopping is so crazy over here. I went to a market today and they have stalls where the butchers are cutting up the animals. it was crazy seeing whole goats just hanging from a hook in the middle of the room. A lot of the stuff is still alive at the stands like that. There were bags of snakes and tanks of lots of different kinds of turtles and frogs. There was a really cute kind of turtle that had a snout instead of a beak so its face looked more like that of a lizard than a turtle. In the supermarket there were whole alligators laid out to buy and there was a fish that was cut in half (even its head was chopped in two) but you could still see its heart beating. You are even allowed to get a net and catch your own fish.

I went to a big store and there was a lot that I wanted to look at but I didn't get to stop and buy anything. It's difficult being a teenage girl going shopping with a middle aged man that doesn't speak any English. He brought his niece and her English-speaking friend with him to the airport to get me so there would be some communication but they left a little bit after we got to the house. His daughter seemed really mad when she gave up her bed, but it's not like I can really ask her how she feels about it. No one in the house can speak English.

I got to stop in Tokyo for about half an hour. It was neat looking at the shops there, and I had to fight myself to not buy any candy. A lot of their magazine names are really weird like "Egg" and "Ball"... I think they're just trying to use English and not caring what the words mean.

The shops here are really neat, they're really small and instead of having a door they just have one wall completely open and they'll only carry one thing, like there will be a tiny shop with nothing but doors everywhere, and then next to it a shop full of curtains or cigarettes, it's sort of neat. I'll take videos of it later but I felt like on my first day there I shouldn't be too weird. But... the butcher place smelled AWFUL!!! It was neat to see all that stuff but it stunk really bad.

I was taken to KFC for breakfast and I think it surprised the guy when I didn't know what the hell any of the stuff there is, he must not have thought that they wouldn't have it at home. China is a KFC & Pepsi country while Japan is McDonalds and Coke (better suited for me).

I drove by an arcade on the way here last night and I really wish I could go there... I want to go out and have fun but I know if I go by myself I'll get lost so I'll have to hope I can find someone to take me. The girls I met at the airport might take me to one of their classes tonight. They said the people they know are interested in meeting a foreigner."






"There are TONS of pajama shops here and it breaks my poor little heart because everytime I go shopping I'm with a middle-aged man and they are all Pajama & bra shops so I don't go in...

He took me to a hairdresser's today and I started freaking out going "Oh no! Phuong wanted to get to do my hair when I got to Vietnam! She was going to take me to her beauty school as a model and everything!" but it was sort of neat. I didn't get my hair cut (Phuong will be happy) they just shampooed me, then gave me a massage, and then styled my hair, pretty cool, and for only $10, but they cleaned my ears, and she actually stuck her finger in my ear before the q-tip and I started laughing. There was also a really cool looking "mall" with neat lighted stairs and tiny pretty shops called Gold City Plaza. First floor was clothes, second floor was accessories, and the third floor had places where they did peoples' hair, nails, and make-up.

I actually spend a lot of the day at home though so I've already read 2 out of 3 of my books in less than a week of my vacation (so much for too many books, huh?) I don't know what I'm going to do when I finish the last one...

I went for a walk with my friends last night and it was pretty neat. They're my age and seniors in high school. They showed me their dorm. Their beds are just peices of wood with blankets on them and they have about 16 people in each room, it seems uncomfortable but it was neat being there. I went at night and was surrounded by Asian girls so it felt like one of my horror movies.

EVERYONE stares at me here. There's never a time when there isn't anyone looking at me, and I haven't seen even one other white person, either. It's sort of neat to stand out though, even with the stares. When I'm with my English speaking friend she tells me what they say, and it's neat to find out when guys say I'm pretty. One person thought I was her teacher. We stood in front of a restaurant last night for a few minutes and all the boys working there gathered at the counted and stared at me, it was pretty funny watching them jab each other in the ribs and giggle. When we walked away I waved and a really cute Asian boy waved enthusiastically back. The restaurant was called "Happy Together"... maybe telling me what could have been?

Cats are smaller here, and all the cats I've seen have been wild, most eating trash. There was one in a store that looked about three weeks old but was walking like it was 6 weeks. It was really really cute so I crouched down to pet it with the man in the store saying something to me, but it got scared and ran off so I got up and started to walk away asking what the man had said and my friend told me "He was saying 'It will bite you'" ... great to know AFTER I try to pet it...

I went to a place that had "Western" food for dinner tonight and had the second worst pizza of my life. Just like we have Americanized Chinese food they have Chinesified American food. I wish some stuff was easier to take home, like their ships flavors are completely different, mango, cucumber, tomato, Italian chicken.

I haven't spent a cent since I've been here though... I never go anywhere alone and whenever I go to buy something whoever I'm with insists that they pay, and then I insist that I pay, and then sometimes I get pushed away from the register... I feel bad but I also sort of feel that they don't want me to fight to hard to pay... Today my eyesight has been really bad from reading all morning."





"It's strange... I was so scared about being here before I got here and now knowing that I'm leaving on the 27th is a little sad... It's irrational because I'm not doing much each day, but I think I'll still miss it.

Something that you probably never would have guessed... The Chinese love corn on the cob. At night there are stalls full of boiling corn on each block, I never would have even guessed about that existing. They also have pineapple stalls, and even cotton candy... but theirs tastes more like pure cane sugar than ours. Some streets even get closed down at night for people to put up stalls in the middle of the road. Another thing that's strange is that it is hotter here at night than during the day (which is fine by me, because I get out more at night) but it's still pretty weird.

The restaurant I went to last night was really neat. There was a pool in the middle of it with an island that had a table and a wrap-around couch with stones in the pool making a path to it, with another island close by that had a piano.

I haven't taken any pictures besides my house and my friends to try and avoid seeming too touristy and weird, but I guess that shouldn't matter. I already stand out because of my skin and it's not like I'll see the people on the street again. There is a picture of the bathroom though, but I might take another picture of just the toilet for you so you can have a better look. I'm planning on taking a video of the shop fronts while driving along the street some time, I just wanted to get more used to the person I'm staying with first.

Their son is really cute, he's probably about 8. He spent a while looking at me last night and then giggling whenever I looked at him.

I tried to show my host the google translator, and even translated an explanation on how to use it, but when I showed him he read it, then clicked out of it and pointed at the phone trying to say something... I translated it back to English to try and see if it was correct before showing him but maybe it still translated wrong? I don't know....

Everyone talks to me like if they keep adding on to what they say I'll understand, so I hear big long speeches about everything, understanding nothing, and I haven't picked up any Chinese, at all, not even one word.

Driving here is crazy. The Chinese drive wherever they want, sometimes on top of the lines, sometimes in the lanes that's supposed to be going the opposite direction. And they park differently too. Some sidewalk are bigger so that people can park on them and other times people just park right in the middle of alleyways."