My First Date In China! :)

Terrie and I totally just went on a double date and we had no idea we were even going on it!! Haha, so after lunch Terrie called, bored, and asked if I wanted to go for a walk.  I was busy writing lessons, but thought a walk would be a nice break, so I accepted.  Anyways, we decided to go over by the restaurants where we made so many Chinese friends last night, and sure enough, we were recognized before we even got across the street.  Before we knew what was happening, we were whisked up to the restaurant by the two boys who pushed me on a cart last night.  They eagerly showed us off to all of the other employees, who recognized me as the silly foreign girl that they applauded last night, and then offered us bean curd milk (which is much more delicious than it sounds….).  We said no, that we were just on a walk, and had to protest many more offers before they understood we weren't staying.  As we were heading out of the parking lot, however, we ran into the 2 boys again, but this time they were on a 3 seated golf cart and wanted us to come for a ride around the neighborhood.  We knew this was safe, because the 2 boy drivers of this golf cart (who were their friends, also our age or a bit younger...we think) are employed to shuttle people to and from their apartments so it wasn't like they could have taken us anywhere dangerous.  Sooo we accepted, and we are so glad that we did! It was such an adventure!! They took us for a "romantic" drive around the neighborhood, bought us ice cream (chocolate ice cream!! Usually in China it's vanilla-ish ice cream on a stick and embedded in the ice cream are red or green beans, peas, or corn…ick), and took us through a fancy building.  It was so funny! The best part about this was that Terrie and I speak Putonghua (standard Chinese), and they speak Sichuanhua (Sichuan dialect) and we couldn't understand each other, so the majority of the ride was either in silence, was boys talking to boys/girls talking to girls, or one of us trying to communicate and the other responding with "ting bu dong" (I don't understand).  It was soooo funny and we definitely had a great time! I plan to hang out with our non-communicative friends many more times before leaving Chengdu. :)  Anyways, now I must rush off and meet up with my Peace Corps community…one of the volunteers discovered a Turkish restaurant (ohhh foreign food that isn't Chinese, how I miss thee!!) on the other side of town so we're splurging and eating hummus tonight.  Ohhh it's going to be marvelous! There's even going to be belly dancers. ;)

Peace, wo de pengyoumen!