We'd planned to take the bus to Songpan this morning but by night we couldn't bring ourselves to wake up so early two days in a row, so we decided to take this day off and stay with H another night. He bought some batteries for his air conditioning remote, so we even had an air conditioned room that night. We slept in and had brunch with H and his girlfriend. She doesn't speak English, but when we saw her later she gave Leia a little white gardenia flower that Leia wore in her hair the rest of the day.
H recommended that we visit a Taoist temple and an old tourist street, but I first had to look for a shoelace to replace one that had broken on my hiking shoes, so he helped us find that. Then we looked at rain covers for a backpack and at sleeping bags for me, but we didn't end up buying any. We walked through a nice if touristy area of shops to a post office so Leia could send her first half-dozen postcards, and I played a carnival game of shooting a Chinese repeating crossbow at a target. The kids next to me were much more accurate with it than I was, yet there wasn't anything to win but face.
We parted ways with H and went back to the outlet mall to try and exchange the underwear I bought, because they were much too small. I took a sample of my own boxers to prove it, and successfully exchanged the tiny ones for a couple better pairs, thoroughly embarrassing the salesgirl and everyone involved in the process. In China I'm size XXL.
In the outlet mall we found more sleeping bags but still decided to try what the trek company would provide - perhaps a mistake in hindsight. I did find a pair of gloves my size, and I bought some cargo pants too. Then we ate at a Japanese ramen place in the mall - still better than Ikea. On the way back we found a much cheaper discount clothing store near our host's house with a lot of Chinese people shopping in it, so I picked up a pair of light sneakers (I'm tired of these weights on my feet) and another pair of pants. We had a dinner of leftovers with our host and went to bed early.
H recommended that we visit a Taoist temple and an old tourist street, but I first had to look for a shoelace to replace one that had broken on my hiking shoes, so he helped us find that. Then we looked at rain covers for a backpack and at sleeping bags for me, but we didn't end up buying any. We walked through a nice if touristy area of shops to a post office so Leia could send her first half-dozen postcards, and I played a carnival game of shooting a Chinese repeating crossbow at a target. The kids next to me were much more accurate with it than I was, yet there wasn't anything to win but face.
We parted ways with H and went back to the outlet mall to try and exchange the underwear I bought, because they were much too small. I took a sample of my own boxers to prove it, and successfully exchanged the tiny ones for a couple better pairs, thoroughly embarrassing the salesgirl and everyone involved in the process. In China I'm size XXL.
In the outlet mall we found more sleeping bags but still decided to try what the trek company would provide - perhaps a mistake in hindsight. I did find a pair of gloves my size, and I bought some cargo pants too. Then we ate at a Japanese ramen place in the mall - still better than Ikea. On the way back we found a much cheaper discount clothing store near our host's house with a lot of Chinese people shopping in it, so I picked up a pair of light sneakers (I'm tired of these weights on my feet) and another pair of pants. We had a dinner of leftovers with our host and went to bed early.
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