Day 79: Qiqihar

-So after a hot and restless night sleep (it didn't help that the people sharing my wall were blasting music half the night) I woke up. Someone had said they would come and get me at 10am, but that didn't happen. It turns out that Kai came to Qiqihar late last night until they figured his placement out. A South African guy on the hall was nice enough to show us the convenience store close by and then tell us where the bigger store was. Both Kai and I needed towels so we walked over to RT Mart (turns out there's no Walmart or Carrefour here, Google Maps lied).

-I bought a few snacks that I used to eat in Beijing. Its so nice when you forget about something really great then suddenly see them again. Unfortunately there's no Diet Coke here, only Coke Zero bottles, so I'm going to have to wean myself off of it. We walked back to the school, about 15 minutes away, receiving multiple stares from people.

-I finally managed to take a shower before I was supposedly meeting with someone at 2pm (that was the message passed on anyway). At 2pm no one showed up so I waited around for a while and took a nap. At 4pm no one had shown up still so I went downstairs to see what was going on only to find out everyone was leaving for the day and they would talk to me tomorrow. Ok...

-Kai and I went to grab dinner at a jiaozi place nearby. They had some really good meat jiaozi, and it was only 14 kuai (about $2.2) each for a huge plate of jiaozi that will last two meals and a big snow beer. We then walked over to the night market that is apparently held every night in the summer. By 8pm it was already closing down but I managed to buy some flip flips (the floor in my room turned my feet black) and some coat hangers. Kai and I then bought a couple of beers and played some cards. Everyone was pretty much in bed by 11pm on a Saturday. Crazy party town I'm in.

The food part of the night market:

Some chefs playing a game:

Pinecones for sale?