HEY PRETTY LADY!.. YOU BUY PURSE? ROLEX?

Today we got the afternoon off from one of our classes and we got let out early from our morning class (SCORE!) so we decided to go on an adventure to the YuYuan Gardens, about 5 train stops away from campus. When we got there, we found it to be shops upon shops upon shops of all the goods: bags, electronics, souvenirs etc, only in an old, ornate mini city. We walked in and found the little water area that's on all of the pamphlets and maps. Whilst taking pictures there, a girl around our age tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to be in her picture. Who was I to say no?

Makin' friends

Once you walk over the little bridge area, you find the entrance to the actual Yu Gardens which costs about 30 Yuan or 15 for students, so we figured it would be worth a look around. The gardens were full of ornate buildings, topped with dragons, soldiers and other statues. Joe and I love looking at the lion statues everywhere, where the male (representing yang) is the one with his foot over an orb, symbolizing power and the female (representing yin) is the one with her foot over a lion cub, representing motherhood and femininity. No two sets seem to be the same, so we like looking at the different ones. We also got some cool shots on the water and with some different rock formations. 

 

Roommates

I liked this guy's facial expression

After wandering around the gardens for a while, we headed back out into the markets and did some shopping. Everyone wanted to sell us stuff, usually yelling at me "pretty lady, you come see?" and all the sketchy guys who come up to you and whisper "rolex? handbag?" to try and get you to go into the alleyway with them and see their stash of goods. Needless to say, we don't go with them. We wandered around for a long time and bought a couple of souvenirs here and there but mainly just had a good time. We stopped for lunch at a "food court" type place where you could get small plates of whatever food you want which was really good. Joe and I ended up staying until the evening to see it all lit up too which was awesome. 

lunch!

One of many animal statues I sat on during our time there.

All the lanterns for sale ready for New Years

Creepin on some cute kids eating cotton candy.. they take pictures of me, so I figure why not?

Loving the New Years decorations

There's some crazy stuff for sale in the markets

Makin' more friends..

 Sorry if this post got excessively long with pictures.. it was a good day with lots of awesome scenery!