Relatives

Our second day in Shanghai was also spent eating. We met up with my mom's cousin who took us to the ancient town Qibao. It's another one of those new rebuilt ancient cities. It's okay, but my uncle raced us through it, I think because he knew that I had thrown up the night before (a shame but probably caused by motion sickness from the bus back to the hostel the night before). After a lunch of soup buns and wontons, Sacha and I went back to my uncle's place to rest and eat dinner with their family. Last time I was in Shanghai, I embarrassingly left the gifts for them behind in Beijing. Greg saved the day with the gifts he brought. This time I could not return empty-handed. In addition to my piece of marble, I picked up some scarves and wax dyed cloths in Yunnan to give to my relatives. But they were too polite to take them! It took a lot of convincing, mostly from Sacha, because I'm awful at this I've learned, but they finally accepted the gifts. In exchange however, they gave me a really heavy piece of glass to give to my grandfather for his 90th birthday. Anyway they fed us yummy food again, including some seasonal vegetable only found in the Shanghai region called malantou and spring bamboo.