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Woke up feeling much better today and made up for being out of action for the last few days! Spent the morning on my lesson plan and then went to meet Hannah for lunch so we could go exploring!! We had heard a couple of times of a shopping arcade called 'Da Shi jie' meaning big world, but had not managed to find out where it was. We had read / been told that it was 6 stories tall and had restaurants, a gym and parties held at the top, however, because we had not found any shopping arcardes fitting this description (and there aren't many shopping arcades so you'd expect it to be obvious) we assumed that it was further out. Anyway, when we were covering 'travel' with the boys on Friday night we asked them and were told it was another name for Jing Bei - a shopping arcade we use every day!!! We thought they had misunderstood us, but after intensive questioning it became clear that they hadn't and that you had to use a seperate entrance to get to the top floors. So using our instructions, we found the elevator and made our way up there. It was amazing and it seems impossible that we have only just found it. There was a very Western / Chinese bar where we sat and had tea and played chess, an amusement arcade, a roller skating rink, a gym, a pool club and even a school!!! We'll definately be going back - especially as the bar looked as if it served red wine! We couldn't find a restaurant, but then decided to take the stairs down, and on the 5th floor there was a whole food hall! It seems it was hidden behind the 'white goods' section which we have never had cause to wander into! After this excitment, I decided to go and get my hair cut. It was an interesting experience putting your hair in the hands of a hairdresser who has no way of knowing asking you questions. I managed to indicate that I wanted it shorter but after that decided that it was better not to try and be specific as it was all open to interpretation. Anyway, 2 hours later (they really don't rush) I was not particuarly happy with the result, but now I have done it myself it actually looks pretty good and for £1.60 I can't really complain. Hannah and myself have started a challenge and reward system, where we complete something which we consider to be quite difficult or scary and then get a reward. As the hairdressers was one of my challenges we headed of downtown via a restaurant for some food, and sought out a 'nail bar' to get our nails done. The girls in the nail bar were really lovely and after we had had our manicures and got our nails painted they all gathered around to try and speak English to us. I had my Chinese / English dictionary and we were all trying to have a conversation using the 'useful phrases'. Whilst we were there someone came in and had their eyebrows threaded which I have always thought about doing, so I decided I may as well get that done as well. The nails ended up costing us £1.60 and the eyebrows 40p, so all in all it was a cheap pamper session! We got home and got changed to go to Da Tang. We'd been told to go a bit earlier, but when we got there at 9:30 it was very quiet, so don't think we'll do that again. We stayed and watched the show but since we had both been ill this week we decided not to make it a big night and left at midnight.
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