Conned by the artists.

Today I tried to sleep in but to no avail. I met lionel and Haaron though which is great. Lionel is quite attractive and is from Sweden, he's not very tall but has funky, sexy I just rolled out of bed and have awesome brown hair going on. His style is pretty good and he seems like a really nice guy. Haaron and I spent the day together as Lionel had an upset stomach, and it turned out to be quite interesting.

We went to this pedestrians only shopping lane in Beijing which was quite pricy in Chinese Renminibi but reasonable in Canadian dollars. I tried on a few toques but most of them were a pricy $200-250 renminibi or $30 Canadian. Some were pretty funky though. I ended up buying an unstylish toque and pair of gloves for $80 renminibi though which worked out to $6 Can a piece, not bad.

We ate lunch at this small little hole in the wall where there happened to be judo on the TV. I was so excited because I thought it was wrestling, but they're quite similar and I could understand everything that was going on anyways. I taught Haaron some of the tactics and he was pretty surprised. Haaron is quite tall and slim with brown horrible hair and glasses. I think that he's been studying quite hard in school most of his life he's 23, and didn't have much of a chance for a social life outside of it. He's quite kind, easy going and has a strange, unexpected laugh that kind of grows on you.

We walked through a beautiful and peaceful garden with one of those really steep chinese bridges in it, my first one! But let's skip to the end of our time together today.

I was taking pictures of Mao Zedong's Picture on the opening gate to the Forbidden City, when I turned around and Haaron was talking to three cute Chinese girls. I came back to join in on the fun and see what was going on. The girls seemed genuinely excited and really wanted to hang out with us. They suggested seeing the gate together and then going for some hot chocolate or tea afterwards. After seeing the gate for a bit, we walked arm in arm to a small tea shop. The girls ordered for us since we had no idea what type of tea to order. The next thing we knew some tea came and a few plates of food. I was a bit suspicious of these girls though, they were very friendly in a fake kind of way and I didn't trust them. The whole time that we were at the tea house I had my arm on my wallet pouch, and they noticed too. I felt that they were trying to pick pocket me maybe. They made conversation that was actually quite rude I thought. When the bill came 45 mins later I was quite relieved. I couldn't wait to leave their company. But when I looked at the bill it was 1460 RNB which worked out to about $40 Can for each person and there were 5 of us so about a $200 tea. I couldn't believe it but just payed so that we could leave that place. When we were walking away Haaron and I realized that we had just been conned. The whole teahouse was in on it!!! Maybe 5 people were involved in it!! There are more details to the story, but I learned to go with my instincts. I had a weird feeling about them from the start I just couldn't quite put it all together in time. Oh well, next time I'll know better.

Lionel is feeling better tonight and we might go to the Great Wall tomorrow. He's quite cute and so I hope that it will be romantic...hahhaha He's talking about maybe trying to find the wall ourselves an hour bus ride or so out of town. Oh...afterthought...that sounds dangerous...but I'm starting to trust my gut instinct more and more, and I get a good vibe from him.