-Melodramatic-

Disclaimer: Just going to be vague about the topic because I don't actually want to go into what it's about. But the vagueness makes it seem much more dramatic than it really is. So dw, everything is fine. 

Things turned out a lot better than I had anticipated, but at the end of the day, it's the end results that matter. Yeah there's the whole experience, blah blah. But there was so much effort and feelings wasted just because of a lame shortcoming of mine. Not to mention, I'm teased by how close I actually was to achieving what I wanted. It's not the end of the world though, just disappointment.

Singapore: Shitty Airbnb Stay

After the night I arrived, I already kinda got over the fact that they weren't willing to come get me from the station because if anything, they're really only offering the place to stay and coming to get you is an extra gesture. I guess I've just been spoiled in the past of being picked up from the station/bus stop every time.

But this wasn't the issue. The issue was that the house was infested with ants. Not to that extreme, but there's a noticeable amount crawling around. I did notice that there were ants crawling around on the first floor (my room was on the second) on the first night. But it was like.. I dunno, maybe a dozen in total crawling around throughout the floor, kitchen, counter, sink, etc. Not to the point where I found the entire colony. It wasn't on the second floor, and it didn't really affect me that much, so I chose to ignore it and assumed maybe it was normal for Singapore.

Over the next few days, I noticed that there were a few tiny ants, the size of a dot that you make with a pencil, running about on my bed. Like maybe 2-3 total every night. Not that much, just killed them and got over it.

On my very last night, I finally noticed a shit ton more ants on the bed. I see like 3 crawling around at a time. After I killed them, another 3 would just appear from somewhere. So I felt like I was battling ants all night and finally fell asleep (YES, I STILL SLEPT THERE). I realized this quite late at night, maybe around midnight or so. So I didn't want to wake up the "manager" to complain about it. The host himself wasn't there, but I also messaged him about, not expecting a response until the next day. Just for the records, I never ate in the room.

I was scared shitless by all the ants and that they would go into all my luggage and have babies and I would bring them back to the States with me and everything. :(

Okay, so that was already my last night and everything. I wasn't leaving the next day until noon or so. 

The host, let's call him "Fred", messaged me back saying that he didn't realize there was an issue with ants, and asked if I notified the manager.

I'm like ya, I told her about it in the morning but not at night because it was already very late when I found out.

And he's like, I'm not sure if much can be done about it since it's already your last day but you can move your stuff to another room even if it's for a few hours. 

He followed up afterwards asking me for feedback and to be "brutally honest" and I was, except I did it in my review, not through PM. I actually forgot to respond to his message, but it shouldn't really matter whether it came from my review or my message because my review would've been the same anyways.

Airbnb does a thing where you can defend your reviews if they're bad, which is what he did, but he was such an asshole about it because he attacked me personally.

I'm going to paraphrase a bit because I don't want it to come up on a Google search, but I don't mind sharing the actual thing if you ask.

1) His claim: My review states that he said there's nothing that can be done
My review said that there's mainly nothing that can be done because it's my last day. Key word: mainly. Because he did offer to transfer my stuff even for a few hours... which was all he offered and I was leaving in a few hours, so that more or less is mainly nothing can be done imo. But he quoted only the part where I said there's nothing that can be done.
Point invalid.

2) His claim: I knew that the manager was there for issues but I chose to contact him instead because he's in charge of payment
Except I told him that I told the manager after he asked whether I did. Is it not normal to contact him because it's his house...?
Point invalid.

3) His claim: My review states that I contacted him immediately but I only contacted him on the last night, not any of the previous nights
Uh, because I didn't know of the issue the previous night? If he even read my review properly, I said that I discovered the ants on my last night and contacted him immediately, so how is his defense even relevant...? Plus I made the fact that I just discovered it that night clear when I messaged him.
Point invalid.

4) His claim: Fred stayed in the room personally and found no ants. He asked my roommates and they said the problem appeared and disappeared along with me. The ants are a result of me eating/having food in the room.
Roommates? I only had one, who moved in on my 3rd or 4th night. So how would they know if it appeared along with me? Plus I TOLD them that there's an issue with the ants right before I left, so if they fixed it, isn't it natural for the ants to disappear as well?! Also, I told the manager (maybe her grandma) that I did not eat in the room when she asked. So why is he making shit up. Clearly there's a lack of communication between them, or he's just making shit up anyways.

He ended his response about how I'm conveniently using this issue for a refund and that there's a lot of questions about my integrity.
Fuck you. I never asked for a refund, and even if it was my intention, how is notifying him of an issue and leaving a bad review based on my bad experience not within my own rights?!?!? Not that he questioned my rights, but there's no relation to money and my integrity. Regardless of whether I had asked for a refund, the ants were in fact there, were they not?!

Makes me so angry just writing about this. I was very upset when I saw his response and I was actually terrified of all my luggage being infested with ants and their babies. :'(

/rant done.

Tony Moly Incident

After this semester, I concluded I just don't have the best of luck with Korean cosmetic stores. First one was in Etude House in Shanghai, read [here]. So I guess this would be the second one.

Btw, I do admit that it was probably my fault.

So I walked into the Myeongdong shop and started looking at their nail polish. I dunno about you, but sometimes I take out the brush to see the color, even if I don't actually brush it on to test out. So I did that. 

Then this saleslady comes over to me freaking out, telling me that I can't test it. I did get pretty defensive because she came out of nowhere yelling (not that angrily, but more in a scolding way) at me T__T So I was just like I'm not testing it!! Because I really didn't put any of the nail polish on myself and I only opened the bottle.

Then she kept repeating herself saying that I can't test it. And I started getting upset because I really wasn't but she kept accusing me of doing so. There was a language barrier fyi.

Eventually, I got so defensive that I started yelling back that I wasn't even testing it and that I was planning to buy it (truth) but now I don't want it anymore [because she ruined my mood] T___T

Dundundun...then the moment of truth. I noticed that there was a safety seal on it, wtf. Either I have godzilla hands and opened it without noticing or the seal was already broken in the first place. I'm not really sure which is the case though.

So I was like shit... The lady never actually forced me to pay for it but just scolded me, and at this point she was just staring at me in disbelief and upset. So in the end I just bought it because I was going to buy it anyways.. and I did  (possibly) "ruin" a sellable product, so I thought it was the right thing to do lol.

By the time I left the store, it was empty lol...I hope it's not because of my outburst. I'm so embarrassing ahhh :(

Sidestory//
Incident #3 was just buying this volcanic face mask from Innisfree. I asked the saleslady which one I should buy because there was two and she recommended one over another. But when I went into a different shop, I overhead the saleslady there telling another customer that the one I bought is for oily skin. So I was kinda upset over that because I told my saleslady that I didn't have oily skin... and at this point the other mask seemed more suitable.

Apparently the shop in Myeongdong is a franchise? Because I wasn't allowed to exchange the one I bought at the other shop... :(

Dear Friend,

I think you should know who you are after reading this post, but if you don't then maybe that's a problem in itself. 

I feel as if we have been drifting apart for a while now, even if I do see you regularly (or not), on the emotional level, I don't feel as connected to you anymore. Many times I feel like I'm being taken for granted or my existence isn't appreciated. Because of this, I've grown bitter and bitchy, and worst of all impatient. Once I've grown impatient with someone, I feel like it's a downward spiral because there's really nothing that can fix it. 

I've already talked to you numerous times about this issue, but they were either disregarded or taken very offensively. So I feel as if I've done my part already, at least in terms of communicating. 

So what's the whole point of this blogpost? I'm not too sure, a combination of a declaration and rant. This isn't a confrontation, though. It might cause a conflict or maybe some tension, or both, but it's probably gotten to the point where it's better than keeping it in because I'm passive aggressive af. 

Am I still your friend? Yes, but I feel less "devoted" than I have been in the past. Have I been a good friend if I'm complaining about it? Probably not. My attitude has been pretty shit because of all this, tbh.

I think I've learned some things about myself through this and maybe it can help me be a better person/friend. I hope you can learn something from it too.

Sincerely,

The Salty Friend

Modstock 2015: Ludacris

Thursday marks the last day of classes for this semester! I have three finals to study for though. I have a conflict for one of my final exams being scheduled at the same time, but now I have to take a different one because of that but I hope it's not harder :( 

I woke up at 5:00PM the day before and didn't get sleep until around 6:30AM, but class was at 8:00AM so I decided to just stay up...and afterwards, I had to run errands and then went to my friend's university to see Ludacris perform. 

It was so crowded though because I was trying to get to the front. Used those skills from Shanghai though and made it pretty close to the stage. But half the time I was shoving and getting shoved >< No personal space at all, but what do you expect lol. I don't really remember too much of it because I know at some point I was pretty focused on getting close. Oops. 

After that, I just hung out with some friends that I haven't seen/hung out with in over a year. 

When I'm in confrontational situations, I either bitch back or be speechless because I wasn't expecting it. Luckily this time, it was the former.

There's this one girl that I used to see at gatherings in my freshman year. I don't think I really saw her last year. Anyways, I don't know her that well aside from her name.. since I never really spoke to her. After Ludacris, some of us gathered back at one of the dorms and the girl came back too and she was eating. She dropped food on her lap or something and told my friend to eat it off of her. 

Like a normal person, my reaction was, "What the fuck?"

And she got angry at me for reacting that way wtf. I don't remember exactly what was said afterwards, just that she was being pissy. But I just ignored her existence after that.

Later that night when I saw her again because we separated for like two hours, she was super nice and friendly so I thought maybe it was all a misunderstanding because she was drunk or I don't know. But then I found out that she actually didn't like me lol. So I was just like oh, okay. 

It's pretty flattering whenever your existence means something to someone else when they're a nobody to you. 

Mailroom Incident

Background: So the other week I ordered a package and accidentally sent it to my freshman year dorm (instead of my own dorm room) because the page refreshed and defaulted to that old address as my shipping address. I got the notification to pick it up (at least they didn't send it back) so I went like five days later. 

When I got to the counter of the mailroom, nobody was at the front (usually there's someone sitting right there). But there were people in the back doing who knows what, so I decided to just wait for them to finish up and not rush them to come help me. But then 20 seconds later, I realized that they were putting mail into each individual mailbox and had a pile to go through, so I decided to get their attention instead of waiting for who knows how long.

Me: Um, hi.

-maybe the girl didn't hear me, but then she looked over 3 seconds later- 

Her: -with an attitude- You should've said something to get our attention

Me: uh, okay. -hands her my ID-

Her: -looks for it but can't find it-

        Do you live on campus or off campus?

Me: On campus

Her: -rummages through the room more-

       I can't find it and our supervisor just stepped out. Can you come back in an hour?

Me: Oh, I don't actually live in this building but I accidentally shipped my package over here.

Her: -attitude comes back- I asked you if you lived here earlier and you told me no. 

Me: -sees the package and points to it- Um, no you didn't. You asked me if I lived on campus or off campus, and I told you on campus.

Her: Obviously that meant if you lived in this building.

And then... as soon as she handed over the package, I told her to stop giving me an attitude. 

I don't understand why she was being so rude from the start. Like can you not try to argue with me when I didn't even do anything wrong or wasn't even being rude in the first place. I wish it didn't catch me off guard or I would've sassed the fuck out of her. But also she had my package as hostage so :(

Too young to deal with this...

Not in the sense where I should when I'm older either, but I'm kind of at my prime of my youth, so I shouldn't fuss over such matters.

Last week, I ended up getting into a pretty awkward situation because I told someone something in confidentiality but what I said was sent over to someone else. While the situation didn't blow up or anything.. I feel like an idiot for putting effort into a friendship with someone who didn't reciprocate. I was already doubting it, but this incident became the final straw. I did call him out for it and he didn't respond, so that speaks for itself. 

On one hand... this is such a petty thing to "fight" over and if the friendship is important enough, then I should just try to talk things through. But on the other, I'm stubborn and I am petty. 

On a final note, it peeves me a lot when people don't reciprocate the effort that I put in. But I'm probably a hypocrite when it comes to that too. I feel like I've been a lot less patient with people since coming back from Shanghai x_x I've been quite passive aggressive before, but now I'm more obvious when I'm unhappy with someone.

Hangzhou: West Lake (杭州: 西湖)

November 14, 2014
On Friday afternoon, I left work a little earlier than usual to head over to Hongqiao Railway Station (虹桥火车站) to catch the high-speed (G) train to Hangzhou. It was only 1hr 12mins away and it is pretty punctual. It's basically like a train version of a plane because the seats are the same with an overhead for luggage and it's a very smooth ride.

We met our tour guide when we got off the train and she brought us to the restaurant. It was frustrating talking to her cuz she barely understood me. Like I tried to tell her my Chinese name and she kept mishearing me.

Me: it's XXX

Her: OH YOU MEAN XYZ RIGHT?

Me: No, no it's XXX

HER: SO XYZ RIGHT?

Even if you didn't hear the exact word you should at least understand no and not ask if it's the same word. Cuz this repeated itself a few times. Made me want to strangle her. 

 We went to 杭州酒家 (Hangzhou Restaurant) for dinner and tried a bunch of different food like beggar’s chicken and 东坡肉. The food was overall pretty good, 4/5.

东坡肉

 So I got the chance of using the hammer thing and knocking on it for luck

Viola! The inside of the thing above.

 We checked into the Merchant Marco Hotel (杭州马可波罗酒店) and I thought it was going to be a sketchy place at first because that’s what it looked like as we headed toward the building, but then as we closer and saw through the glass doors into the lobby, it was a REALLY nice hotel. My room was HUGE as well compared to some of other others. Out of four other rooms that I saw/heard about, mine was definitely a lot bigger.



In photos it looks like a very standard-sized room though T_T But there was a huge “living room” space and there was like a small hallway for the closet. The bathroom was divided into the sink area, toilet room, and bath/shower room. 

 We didn’t really do much for the rest of the night because it was already about 10:00PM and freezing cold outside. We walked around the neighborhood and found a store called Miniso that sold just about anything for really cheap. I bought pens that were 3 for 10RMB. Oh yeah, I guess stuffing myself during dinner wasn’t enough because I also went to this fast food restaurant and ordered fries.

November 15, 2014

Breakfast the next morning was buffet styled on the second floor of the hotel. It was a mix of Western and Chinese, but mostly Chinese. It was pretty good, except I wish that ice cream wasn’t only for lunchtime :(

Kitty makes her first guest appearance (photo stolen from Cory)

(photo stolen from Cory)

 Saw so many wedding shoots here!

We went to the West Lake (西湖) for a boat ride that lasted an hour. It was very relaxing, except it got chilly towards the end. I’m also a bit disappointed that the area we were in wasn’t as pretty as what we saw on our way to be dropped off because the lake was like glistening but not from what we saw when we got off… 

We also walked around 郭庄, a Chinese classical garden with bonzais and a shop to make a stamp out of your name. 

 I was still pretty full from breakfast, but we had a lunch buffet at 西湖国宾馆 (Xihu State Guest House). There was so much seafood, yumm….and dessert… yummmm^2. Needless to say, I helped myself to seconds and then proceeded to two servings of ice cream and then cake. Not even surprised.

During the afternoon, most of us opted to bike around the West Lake. There are a lot of rental shops in the area and I believe it should be 10RMB/hr, and did it for two hours. I had mixed feelings about the activity though. It wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds because although you’re biking around the West Lake, it’s really just on the roads so you’re probably….biking 25-50 feet away from the water itself.

Most of our group also biked on the sidewalk and it was really frustrating to do so because the place is PACKED with pedestrians and I got fed up with having to stop every 10 seconds just because people were in the way or the person biking in front stopped. I can understand that they’re hesitant to bike on the road alongside the cars, but it really isn’t that bad at all because the cars keep their distance and so I just started biking on the road after 10 minutes. >< In the end Cory and I just ended up biking at our own pace because it was easier that way and the further we biked off, the less crowded it got. 

Trying to look artsy, but I don't think it was working (photo stolen from Cory)

 Towards the end was kind of frustrating again. We all met up after the Six Bridges and biked back to return our bikes but we kept stopping every 3 minutes to make sure we were going the right direction. But the thing with this is that the lake is round…you really have to just follow that path and you’ll go back to where you started. I honestly could’ve just biked back on my own without stopping so many times. 

 There was also another incident. At some point, I was trying to pass this girl from my program. We were on the road and fenced against the sidewalk, but there was a good amount of space for me to pass her without getting too close. Just as I was doing so, she SWERVED towards me and almost hit me, but didn’t. She gave me an attitude and told me that I should’ve rung my bell. I think it’s a pretty legitimate suggestion, except for her tone of voice and her attitude toward me in general was unnecessary. 

Which leads me to mention another incident that happened a few weeks prior to the bike incident: 

Class just ended and we were walking together down the hall towards the elevator. Just as we reached the elevator, she suddenly stops, so naturally I did too. Except the elevator was open and had plenty of space for us to go in. After a few seconds of just standing there, the elevator closed and went down without us.

So I asked her why she didn’t go in and she shrugged it off. So I asked again because I don’t understand why you would suddenly stop in front of an open elevator and not go in (and you weren’t waiting for anyone else either). With an attitude, she told me that if I wanted to go in, I should’ve just gone. But wtf? I was walking with you and if you stopped, obviously I would stop and not go in as well. Next time should I have shoved you aside so I can get in? I could not understand her logic and was about to bitch back but just didn’t want to bother and dropped in. 

/endrant 

After returning the bikes, we went to Old Street to look around for 5 minutes before heading to dinner, which lead to the restaurant incident that I wrote about >>here<<.

On the brighter side, here are food photos:

Went back to the hotel afterwards and just relaxed for a bit. Then we went out to a jazz bar, except we didn’t know it was a jazz bar. So I was surprised. There was this American girl singing. I was kind of like fml because:
1) It was a jazz bar and not what we expecting
2) It was hot
The drinks were pretty good hehe but not strong enough, but the bartender was nice about making it stronger. We went back to the hotel after an hour and a half or so. It was kind of funny because it was literally a 2 minutes cab ride so I felt like a lazy fuck and congrats to the two cab drivers for making easy money. It was supposed to be a 15 minute walk, but as I said, I’m a lazy fuck so I opted for the cabs. -privileged- jk, not that privileged, it was less than $2, which is what a person would normally pay for a train ride anyways.

Until next time!

Utterly Disgusted

There are fucken ants everywhere. 

I've noticed on the first night that the kitchen of the place I'm staying at in Singapore has ants crawling all over. The counter, the floor. But they were mainly on the first floor. 

As for the bedroom, there weren't any normal ants, but I've noticed a couple of little black ants crawling on my laptop every night. Disgusting, but this much I can handle. 

But then on my last night (right now), I kept finding a lot! Then I looked over at a corner of my bed and THERE WERE SO MANY CRAWLING EVERYWHERE. I got rid of 10 within 20 seconds. And my clothes have been on this bed too. No doubt they've already been infested. Not to mention, they're TINY, so I wouldn't be surprised if they already made way into all my luggage :| Going to have to rewash everything thoroughly when I get home. So grossed out... 

How am I going to sleep tonight, knowing that there are loads of ants running around next to my face? 

Already contacted the owner of the place, so hopefully they can make it up somehow. But it's really not okay to have to sleep with ants and fear for ant-infested luggage. :| Ughhhh.

My Saddest Fangirl Moment (...so far)

I found out from one of the promoters of that Jay Park would be at Muse that night and naturally I wanted to go... I was never a 2PM fan or anything like that, I think I found out who he was after he wasn't a part of the group anymore. 

Anyways, I didn't really believe it lolol but confirmed with the promoter that he'd be there. 

One of my friends agreed to go with me. I got to Muse at 10:30PM or so, because my friend wanted to go early. The promotor told to come at 11:00PM, so we spent the next hour at the bar. The club was also quite empty = more suspicious whether he'd actually come...

By the time I finally tried to look for him around 11:30PM, he was nowhere to be seen :(( sobss but found him a bit later at a different table but it was a private table so the security guards didn't let me talk to him fml. 

But the worst part was that... I didn't actually get to "see" him either even though he was like 5 feet away from me because my vision was blurred LOL WTF FMLL. I had to ask my friend if it was really him or not and he didn't know who Jay Park was until Baidu-ing him that night, but he said yes, so... Have to trust him I guess..

Needless to say, this was one of the saddest nights of my stay in Shanghai. I missed my opportunity to meet him and couldn't even see him when he was in my face. 

Oh ya, after I left a while later, I think he might've came out to hang out with normal people again :( fml. 

Airbnb Verified ID: Invasion of Personal Information?

Fuck fuck fuck. 

Under the pressure to have somewhere to stay for tomorrow night, I suspiciously and hesitatingly put in my personal information for Airbnb to verify. It's ridiculous for them to ask for a scanned copy of your passport/government ID or the last four digits of your SSN and then you have to link your Linkedin/Google/Facebook account. I'm even more of a dumbass for doing it and regretting it right after. Now I'm going to be paranoid for the rest of my life of someone trying to steal my identity because Airbnb already knows my name/address/everything about me basically, so ughhhh. Fuck my life. 

I guess hungry people are bitchy people

We had a group of 14, so we split into two tables in a small private room, the "vegetarian" and "meat" tables (I sat in the meat table ofc). We had two vegetarians in the group, and each table were free to order their own dishes. 

The second dish that came got misplaced into the vegetarian table and I don't understand why they think it's okay to put their hands (literally) on our food, especially after we kept saying it's our dish. 

Our molested food after we got it back. Poor thing.

Then another dish came out and it was theirs but placed on our table. We told the waiter that it's theirs and to bring ours to us, and one of the girls from our group yells at us, "just get your fucken food yourself." And it's like...you're only getting your food because we made sure they go to your table, so be fucken grateful instead of bitching.

Throughout the whole night it was so awkward because they kept complaining about how our dishes were "bigger" and theirs were tiny and they were pissed at us. Everything they said, they couldn't just say it like a civilized person, but with a bitchy attitude. When we asked them if they had enough food (because we didn't know if the food finished coming out or not) they were just like, "no, we're hungry cuz our dishes are so small." But it's like...you ordered your own dishes, so why are you pissed at us that we made better choices with food? And honestly, they weren't limited to ordering just veggies either..it was just easier to have the two vegetarians sit on one table. Also, for a good 10 minutes, we had three people from our group still on their way, so the meat table was half empty, which meant they all CHOSE to go to that table.

At some point one of the girls from the veggies table came over and saw a dish that we just ordered: 

She was like, "oh we want to order that too." And we offered for them to just come over and take some if we wanted because it's a relatively big dish and might go to waste. She gave us the dirtiest look over omg. 

Another thing is that someone from our table ordered a single chicken foot. It ended up on their table at some point, and for a while we were asking the waiters like what happened to it and stuff because we never got it and there's no way that it went to the other table because they only have vegetarian dishes. So we finally asked them just to make sure, and they're like, "Oh yeah, we got it. We ate it." Umm really... thanks for eating our food. It's OBVIOUSLY not theirs when it's meat too, so I don't know why it's think it's okay to do that. It was a single chicken foot, so it was obviously for someone too. If you want it, you can order it yourself.

It's not the fact that we had to share that makes me upset, but that they were bitching the entire night that it ruined the mood and made it so awkward for my table. I didn't even write about all the bitchy things they were saying, nor did I know the extent of it either because I wasn't at that table.

When they were walking out, they walked by our table and looked at our dishes, which were empty btw, so it might just be literally be the dishes. And they were making comments like, "oh yeah look at how big their dishes are and how small all ours were." 

So fucken bratty and bitchy. 

EVA Air No Bueno

Written before takeoff by a hungry and upset Jessica

EVA Air is officially on my list of bad airlines x.x It’s mainly prompted by the fact that I did not get any food >=( My first time flying with them and it’s already off to a bad start.

So I got through security and everything by 6:45PM and my flight is at 8:05PM. But when I got to the gate, I found out that the flight has been delayed and we were never told for how long because the announcements for the next two hours kept saying it’ll be announced later.

Around 8:30PM they started giving food vouchers of 60元 per person. I went to this restaurant and sat down because they told others to sit down first then order. After sitting around for a while and constantly trying to call out to the waitress, which at some point she told me to wait, and waited we did, I finally went up to the person at the cash register since she didn’t seem to be as busy as the others. She told me to go find the waitress herself and ask. Fine, fine.

So I did and had to wait even when I was up in her face calling for her, she ignored me. But finally got her to come over to the table….and she tells me it’s too late to order because the flight is boarding. WTF WTF. So pissed. I was just sooo annoyed at this point, and she said I can grab ice cream if I wanted but I’m like no. I want my fucken food, not ice cream. Err not that I said that to her, but I was just like no I don't want that. 

Ughhhh. I could kind of understand the whole thing with the delay since that seems to occur with flights pretty often (1.5 hours isn’t too bad tbh) but then the restaurant incident kind of just ruined it all for me. But if you think about it, why is the airline giving meal vouchers 30 minutes before boarding when they KNEW for over two hours that the flight would be delayed. 

I would of just gotten my Burger King if I knew it was going to be like this. Fuck.

Etude House Incident

Yesterday, I went to the Etude House at West Nanjing Road (南京东路). It was probably the worst experience I've ever had, but given that I never had an AWFUL shopping incident, I think.

Basically, I couldn't find the color of what I wanted so I tried to flag down an employee, but they made eye contact and walked away. After looking through all the products on the shelf and not being able to find it, I tried to actually approach a sales associate. There was like... 7 or 8 of them at the cash register and only one customer was checking out, so even a while after that customer finished, they just loitered around that area and chatted. Which is really stupid because the store was full of customers and ALL the employees were gathered in that corner. It kind of got annoying because I'm like staring them down, but they're too engrossed in their own thing. To prove that they're definitely not busy, this one employee kept going back and forth to a mirror to fix her makeup.

So anyways, I approached them and said I needed help. They looked at me, then looked away and continued their chattering. Wtf?! Wanted to just put the shit down and leave by then cuz they definitely did not deserve my business there >_> But I just stuck it out because if I didn't get it from this store I'd have to go to another location which is just inconvenient for me D: So I asked them again for help and the manager told a girl to help me. 

Got my thing and went to checkout. My total was 77元 and I repeated it back to make sure because I thought one of my items was 18元 and the other 29元, so it definitely didn't add up, but it was just because I misheard it earlier. So they told me to look at the screen for the total. So as I getting my credit card and one of the girls standing there was just like "seven seven" in English, so I'm not sure if it was just mockery or what? Because her tone sounded like that and also I've been speaking to them in Chinese, so at the very least I would think I know my numbers. But because I was speaking English with a friend, they knew I was a foreigner for sure. It's also the fact that the total was right in my face on the screen, so I don't understand why it was necessary for her to do that. 

I don't know how much shipping would cost, but apparently the same product I bought costs $2 on the official site vs 48元 （～$8) so WTF ripped off!! But then shipping might be super expensive, so not sure. Also I might've bought the wrong kind, but I didn't see any other ones at the store.

Anyways, bottom line is...never shopping in that particular Etude House again. They're just rude and inattentive. 

Wuzhen Trip & A Bit of FOMO

This weekend the school arranged a trip with other exchange students to Wuzhen, a canal town 2.5 hour ride away. I only ended up getting 2 hours of sleep, so I was super tired and passed out during the bus ride. 

As for the town, I guess I'll describe it as a less decorative version of Lijiang. It is definitely still very touristy and the prices do reflect that. We kind of just walked around.

We went to this cafe to sit down and just relax for a bit. I ordered a vanilla milkshake for 30¥ but it tasted just like milk wtf D: It wasn't even like the right consistency. 

Walked around some shops and there was this small toy-music shop and they had the prettiest carousels ever D: I was pretty tempted to get one because there was this super pretty pink one, but it was just a bit too big and it was also like 430¥  :(

Umm there was an "incident" when we returned to Shanghai though. Maybe it wasn't meant to be malicious, but.. still quite fucked up. Basically most of the people from my program went to Wuzhen (10 of us) and when we got back to Shanghai, they all went to get dinner together, except they didn't invite me or my friend (we were sitting together on the bus). We only found out because after getting off the bus, we saw them all going the other direction to get dinner. Not only that, but before we got off, my friend's roommate had given her a bag of things she purchased and asked her to bring it back to the room first. So if "everyone" was going to get dinner, why is it assumed that she was going back first..? Ehh? To make matters worse, they all came back with takeout to eat at my friend's place >_> Which is SO awkward and just awful >:(

It's not even a matter of being cliquey either because the WHOLE group went, so it's not like a few of them decided to get dinner together afterwards.

Later that night, they all went out to the Bund to see it at night. It's definitely like a very common activity to do, but it's like.. last time when I was going to go I invited some of them to go but we ended up not going because it was raining. But then this time they didn't even bother to extend the invitation back. It wasn't too out of the way either because we exchanged conversations like, "Oh where are you going?"

Ugh.