It has been a crazy culture shock here and I find myself just stepping back and trying to take it all in, but it's pretty overwhelming.
Our first day out was to a big store called Carrefour. It was pretty much like a giant T&T/Walmart where you could buy anything imaginable. We bought a bunch of stuff for our apartment, along with some food and snacks. That was our first encounter with the language barrier. When we went up to the till to pay, she kept pointing at all of our fresh produce and we had no idea what she was trying to say. In the end we figured out that you needed to get a sticker put on all of your produce before you got up to the till so that it had a UPC code. it was extremely frustrating, but in the end we know for next time what to do.
Yesterday was extremely crazy! We took a taxi about 45min away from our campus....the taxi ride in itself was an adventure. They do not follow lines or make signals or anything here. It seems as if it's a free for all and people just honk if they are going to pass you so that they know you are behind them. I found myself letting out tiny screams every few minutes as I thought we might hit, or be hit by another car.
When we got to our destination, it was a crazy street market like I have never even imagined. It was probably the size of a small city. There was like two blocks designated to everything that you can imagine. I took a few pictures of it, i'm going to try and post some on my facebook soon, maybe later on today. Thank goodness we had two people with us who were able to speak mandarin so we were able to get along alright and barter for some stuff. I bought some sweet chinese bunny slippers to wear around our apartment which i'm super pumped about for less than $3 Cdn. Everything is so cheap, it's crazy. When we went to Carrefour we were able to buy pretty much everything we need for our apartment, pots, pans, plates, bowls, garbage cans, lamps, hair dryer, cleaning supplies, food, etc for about $180 Cdn.
I'm excited to go and do some fun shopping though. We need to get paid first though to go do that since a lot of the new teachers here don't seem to have a lot of money yet.
I still can't believe that I've done this. The first night I just layed on my bed and thought to myself, WTF! Haha, but I know in the end this will be an awesome experience, as it's only been three days and i've had some crazy adventures.
Hope to hear from you soon, miss you lots
-Taryn
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