Where are the subtitles?

My suitcase finally arrived...

...and the Naked Cowboy days are now over! For those of you who don't know the naked cowboy yet, check him out here.

Well yesterday, as Dan suggested, I went shopping in case my luggage didn't show up. I'm still a bit jet lagged but shopping was a real priority :) I went around the block to discover a huge shopping mall with shops like Mango, French Connection, Sephora, Promod and Carrefour... among others! This shopping centre also has restaurants and a so-called "international cinema". Outside, it's kinda cold but inside, it's roasting like hell! Also, the music and the people are very loud. I ended up with a headache in 2 minutes, especially when they started playing Goodbye Philadelphia by Peter Cincotti like 5 times and also Je m'appelle Hélène... no kidding! If you don't know this song, ask the Frenchies what it's about! Anyway, I bought a few clothes, didn't go too crazy with that and then headed to Carrefour to get some food... Honestly, I didn't think I would make it alive! It was packed... a bit like the last weekend before Christmas except that I have the feeling it's like that ALL the time.

Anyway, forget about what you like to eat and try to experiment would be my 2-cents piece of advice... readable labelling? European products? You wish!!! It was very very hard to find things I could recognise or would be able to cook or eat. For instance, I bought some bread and then tried to look for butter or cheese spread... something to put on it... I went to ask a shop assistant and started to mime what I was looking for. Believe me, she had no clue what I was talking about and started laughing... In the end, Amélie's gift (the Point It book) will come in very handy in these situations. Another funny thing that happened there and that I would never have expected, apart from the fact that it was mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide, is a girl who came up to me and said in English:
- Excuse-me, can I tell you a joke?
- Sure!
- Alright, it's about 3 mental health patients that go to a swimming pool... (she tells the joke)
- Ha ha ha! That's a good one!
- Can I ask you something else?
- Of course!
- Can you sign my notebook and put a comment about the joke?
It turns out this is a school assignment. I'm not sure the assignment is to pick a random person in a shop and ask bluntly if you can tell the joke but she got what she wanted in the end :)

I came out alive and managed to bring my little grocery back to the hotel. It was quite a day! In 2 days, I've probably reduced my talking skills by 80% and I only use words when really needed. This is how desperate I've become! Until I'm able to ask for things in Chinese, I will prevent from being the annoying English speaker that goes to a foreign country and expect everybody to do so. Obviously, I'm not really good at miming so I will stop that as well :)

Tomorrow is my first day at work here! Yeeha! I will finally have conversations again!!!

Until my next post, enjoy this little piece of music...



PS. No I was not trying to scare the poor guy you see walking at the end, I was just trying to show the queue of buses :)