We were so tired and so comfortable in our beds, but we were
finally getting up about eight! We dressed for the day- Katie and I had brought
shorts in hopes it would be warm enough but the cloudy sky made us second guess
and so we wore our jeans instead.
Hungry for some good food, we wandered around a few places
but the place from last night wasn’t open yet and the other places were
expensive. There was a few stalls but most of it was sea food. A popular thing
was putting shrimp in these odd pancakes… yeah, don’t ask. I don’t know. Nicole
grabbed a few things, though, and finally Katie decided on a noodle dish.
Sour for my taste, and very odd. But Katie really enjoyed
it. The noodles were NOT normal and looked like… brains or intestines or
something… but Nicole said they come from yams? Apparently? Who knew? But yeah
that wasn’t too bad, and then I grabbed a fried twisted bread thing to finish
down nicely, which was pretty tasty.
We also got these odd fruit-cupcake things. I don’t even know
how to describe them and I wish I had grabbed a picture. They had them in
yellow and in purple. It’s basically like… this gummy-dough wrapped over a
cupcake that’s entirely covered in whipped cream. It’s super odd and funny
looking and even a little funny tasting- candy dough with whipped cream but its
not that sweet. But it was a lot of fun!
Stomachs full of food, we finally went to the beach! Beihai
Silver Beach. We walked past a few fun shops, ignored the men trying to get us
to pay money to ride their boats and jet skis, and kept walking. It was
Nicole’s first time to the beach! We loved it!
We took a freaking ton of pictures doing all sorts of
things. Of course we could never look as cute as Nicole, seriously… but we
tried! We put our feet in the water, we picked up shells, it was so much fun!
We loved it! We laid down in the sand
for a while too, it was so soft. It was still a bit cloudy but it was warming
up nicely and it was such a peaceful, relaxing day!
For a while we stopped and sat around. Nicole paid to go on
a jet ski, and she loved it! It was so much fun! And then the tide went way,
way down, and we went out a lot farther to check out what the water had covered
up. Lots of crab skeletons, for one, and we were always stepping over the holes
of the tiny sea crabs! Luckily we never got pinched….
But yeah, we went way out there, it was crazy. The sand got
a little weird and harder but there were lots of barnacles on shells and even
plastic and all sorts of things, it was so much fun to venture out that far and
wander around. So peaceful!
Well, for the most part. We had a ton of men pestering us to
go on their boats, and when we got far away, there was this large group of
Chinese tourists who all wanted pictures with us. It was super ridiculous and
kind of funny. So many pictures though, that was pretty crazy- we even did a
huge group one, haha! Nicole had to do a few translations which we’re sure she
got tired of, but she was such a good trouper. But seriously, it’s exhausting
and we suggested she pretend to not speak Chinese- and she did that to a guy!
We were trying to hard not to laugh when he came over to talk to us. I mean, we
get that they’re curious- but they don’t have to know everything about us.
We’re trying to relax for crying out loud. So the guy walked away with all of
his questions and we held our laughter until we were sure he couldn’t hear
anything! Haha!
Also we found the pointy shells with the little kretins
still inside, dragging their ‘home’ around with them. We’d been collecting the
shells and came upon them by accident, of course. However Katie started the
game of whispering wishes to them and throwing them back into the water. As
violent as it may seem, I like to think those creatures appreciated our efforts
and can carry our wishes down to Poseidon or something… It was fun!
Eventually we headed back, and it was only a short while
after noon. So we laid down and napped for a bit, and then I really wanted to
return to Old Street. We headed back into town on the bus, trying to go to the
Window Of Heaven, some sea world kind of place? Nicole really wanted to check
it out but tickets were gone for the day by then, so we went back to Old
Street. I have Katie to thank more for making sure we went back!
She also found us a drink shop, yay! We bought drinks,
chocolate as usual- super rich! Nicole bought little seafood balls with meat
shavings on them. It wasn’t too bad- but super freaking hot! So hot! And then
we walked and walked down all the streets until we finally found Old Street again!
Which was spectacular, by the way, by moonlight or sunlight!
I loved it! We took lots of great pictures, it was so pretty! The street goes
on and on and we went pretty far but not all the way- the tourist shops started
fading away.
And boy were there shops! We had so much fun going through
them, it was great! I was a bit worried I’d spend all my money, but no worries,
I think I spent maybe 100 RMB altogether, and that’s it. I got a ton of fun
trinkets! A seastar necklace, pearl earrings, a few gifts, and more! It was so
much fun, we loved wandering around and looking at everything, it was great! So
great!
We had to go to the bathroom whilst there, which was the
tricky part. The sign was practically hidden and it was down a suspicious
alley. But we worked it out okay. The stalls were extra short, and the only
light came from the doorway, but otherwise it wasn’t too terrible. We had to
pay 5 jiao [half a yuan] for it, but it wasn’t too bad.
A few hours passed and it was dark by the time we finally
headed back out, loaded with awesome trinkets and such. Of course, we paused at a supermarket on the
way to grab snacks for the next day’s train ride. We’d grabbed a few snacks to
try- chocolate coconut for example- from Old Street but here we grabbed noodle
bowls and more before leaving.
We took the 3 bus back to our hotel, dropped everything, and
then crossed the street again for some more chow mein. This time the three of
us ladies shared two plates, and that was still a ton but much more doable!
Yay!
Stuffed again, we headed out to the water one last time. It
was foggy so we couldn’t see the stars but there are some great lights on the
boardwalk so we had no worries. The tide was still pretty far off. We dipped
our toes in, then laid in the sand and then began building tunnels, which was a
ton of fun with us three ladies.
There, Nicole gave us our Chinese names! It’s an honor to be
asked to give them, as well as to receive them. She had already bestowed her
family name upon us, Jao, which was awesome, and finally she thought up some
for us.
Katie is now Yow-chi, or Yow-shi, I don’t quite remember.
Kind of eccentric which was fun. It means intelligent and clever and beautiful.
I’m now Jin-she, which translated to pretty heart and kind
heart. Or smart heart? Something like that, haha. But super cute! She’s going
to write out the characters and all for us, which is pretty awesome and so
sweet of her. She made this trip such a blast, and we wouldn’t have survived it
the same without her. Nicole seriously is so wonderful, and such a darling!
We ended up dunking ourselves in the water quickly before
saying good-bye. Yes, it was Katie’s idea. Yes, I agreed to do it. Wet, we
bought another water bottle for the next train ride and then we headed inside.
We took showers and started prepping everything for the next day. Our clothes
were wet obviously so we borrowed a blow dryer from the owner [so nice!], and
left our damp things out to dry during the night.
It was about midnight by the time we finally gave up and
curled up in our blankets!
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