I think I need to wrap up the gift buying since I’m running pretty low on cash. Anna and I went back to the Pearl Market yesterday to get a few things we forgot. I finally got the mini backpack I saw the first time I went there and couldn’t find again until now.
It was weird yesterday though, a lot of people weren’t at their stalls and stuff. I wanted to get a keychain for my friend and while I was digging through this 10-35 yuan basket a lady from the stall across came over (to make sure I didn’t steal I guess) and when I asked her how much it was she panic then gave me a price of 20. I asked what about 15 and she seemed to panic more. Then took the keychain to ask the opinion of the owners of other booths. Then came back and told me ok. Unfortunately I only had a 100 yuan bill and when I tried to pay with she gave me another panic “omg” expression and told me to wait while looking around. Finally the owner of the stall came back though and could do the sale lol. Similar thing happened at another stall where me and Anna wanted to buy earrings. The owner was no where in sight so some other lady came to bargain with us. When Anna wouldn’t go higher on a pair of jade earrings they had to call the stall owner to see if it was ok. Its kind of weird how they all help each other out but at the same time they are competing with each other. I wonder if that whole floor is just owned by one person and the workers just get paid based on the sales they make.
I had wanted to go to Element Fresh with Margaret and Caroline for dinner but after shopping I didn’t really feel like I had enough money for that so Anna and I just got fried rice on campus instead (getting pretty tired of it).
We got a new teacher yesterday as well to replace the one who left. She has the same last name as my ex (Gu) and is not doing too well on getting the class to like her (like keeping us 15 minutes past the break hour so we can recite our dialogs). I do miss the teacher who left since she was a lot more lively and explained things more and never kept us past the hour.
Today in class they went over some of the test material for the exam on Friday. I’m glad she’s giving stuff for us to study because I doubt I can study 13 chapters worth of vocab before Friday (probably over 400 new words). Then later Anna and I are going back to the fabric market to do final gift shopping and then dinner on the Bund.