I Wanna Live in Edmonton!

The morning started off at 5:15 after a nice 10 hour sleep. We were refreshed! We were revitalized! We were ready to go for a run!

Got on the ol' running shorts and runners and headed out for a run down to the Bund.
On our way we saw many interesting things:
UBC coffee
Hello Kitty Wedding Dress Store
and a vendor selling something that looked just sickening enough to be delicious.

We stood and watched as a man and a woman tag teamed it over a cast iron thing that had a fire under it and some very very brown oil poured in. They got some batter with green onions and pushed it down into the oil with a tool and then one hand cracked an egg over it and flipped it to sizzle in the oil. After that they spread some thick brown goop on it and called it breakfast for many construction workers.

It took us FOREVER to communicate that we wanted some (mostly because we think they were trying to ignore us...) and we finally ended up getting one for .50 yen (which is just a few cents USD) It was good and gross at the same time. Day 2, our first and last vendor experience here in China? Only time will tell.

We took a loooong walk on the Bund and then down the business district. It was beautiful! The weather was totally overcast, but the buildings were nice! Over the water were Modern buildings and to our right were very old European style buildings. We ran into an Italian man on our way back who was quite nice and gave us tips:

• Don't drink the water (a given)
• Don't buy from vendors (oops)
• Don't go over to anyone's house who seems to be nice, odds are, they're just being nice so they can rip you off.

Of course our walk home included a pit stop at our new favorite place: Cafe 85 for some maple toast, sweet bread, and sugar covered twisty bread.

On our way home we saw some lady screaming that the Watsons Market wasn't open yet (the place we were going to buy band aid's.) Stuart and I wonder why people in China yell SO MUCH! They LOVE to yell!
They also love to butt in line and make me crazy, but that's another story.

After we got to our hostel we showered and got changed into our Canada shirts and headed for the Expo!

The Expo had some magical moments, some annoying moments, and lots of line-ups.
The first expo we went to was in the theme pavilion 'City life' it was AWESOME... but there was this video that showed different places in the world and it had a HILARIOUS depiction of Edmonton - two people calling their huskies to take them skiing. It looked magical, ha ha.

All in all I am VERY glad we went. The country's buildings were almost all AMAZING! (Canada being one of the awesome ones!) but inside they were mostly a bit boring. After a few hours in the Expo we went in search for food only to find asian, asian ,and more asian. We searched high and low for Canadian food because both of us were obsessed with the idea of having a good ol' fashion burger. After probably an hour of grumpy searching there it was.... BURGER KING! It looked like heaven!

We gobbled down our double double burger, spicy chicken burger and fries and headed back out. We ate authentic Belgium waffles and let me tell you, they were just as good as I remember! Of course after hours and hours of physical activity and a menu for the day of maple bread, waffles, and burgers, our tummy's were not very happy.

We stood in line for the German expo forEVER because it looked totally awesome and huge and everyone else was doing it so it must be good! The man in front of me was the Chinese Vanessa. We tried to say things to him from the phrases we wrote down but the only stuff we really wrote down was: that's too expensive, hello, sorry, and how much. Not real conversation starters...We spent a lot of time trying to take a picture with him and laughing our heads off in the line-up. A highlight of the expo! The Germany expo was okay... but definitely not worth the line up!

Onto others:
We probably spent half an hour in the Singapore expo trying to look official so that no one would stand in line for the massage chairs and think we just worked there and had a right to sit in them. We even hid the remotes so they looked just like normal chairs. It worked!
Mmmmm, did my feet feel anew after that.

At about 9:20 we headed to our last destination : the China expo.
We were exhausted and i was feeling seriously ill, but we forced ourselves! It was AMAZING. The best expo BY FAR... but we were sooo tired, that particular expo was closing and our feet were once again about to fall off.

I was so tired on the train back that I fell asleep standing up!
So tired that I didn't look at any of the street vendors as we walked the walk back to our hostel!

And then the bed. The glorious bed. The day was done! :)