La Mella

We finally dragged ourselves out of bed at 11 and went out for breakfast/lunch at a small cafe on the corner of Calle El Conde. Alexis had told about a couple of local dishes we should try and since we hadn't really tried anything local so far we thought it a good idea. Mae ordered a plate of Mangu, which is a sort of salted plantain mash with onions. It was served with 2 fried eggs as a breakfast dish. I on the other hand ordered a Chimi which is a fried chicken and cheese sandwich on a plantain like bread. We shared both between us, and thoroughly enjoyed both dishes. After filling our bellies we went up to the street we had taken a collectivo down when going to the bus station, It turned out to not be as interesting as we had though with mostly touristy shops selling all the same tat as we have seen everywhere else. On the plus side it did lead us to Santo Domingo's quite new china town which was far more interesting. We walked under the traditional 'portal' and along the main street which is lined at intervals with statues dedicated to various Chinese cultural things (missing the one which a Brazilian church ripped down because they claimed it looked like the devil of course). Reaching the other end of the street we turned right to see the Zodiac Plaza which has a central statue of I assume some kind of deity, and a statue dedicated to each of the zodiac figures in Chinese mythology. We looked for our own of course (mine is the rat and Mae's the pig) before walking back to a large supermarket we had passed earlier to buy some rum which we could take home as duty free. After meticulously calculating how many bottle we could take with us we bought the appropriately sized bottles and carried them back to the apartment where we spent the rest of the evening packing our bags and waiting in vain for the water to come back on, apparently they were cleaning the pipes, but we eventually gave up and went to bed.