Swedish meatballs and ice cream

Today was my dedicated IKEA day....so apparently the thing to eat before you shop are the Swedish meatballs (well how can a girl say no?!) and after a good 3 hours of turning around trying to find things, you reward yourself with a Mr Whippy type of Ice Cream not bad!!! My friend Sophie had told me that IKEA was an interesting experience in China and she was right. People lounge about on the beds in the fake bedrooms, they sit on settees and have conversations in the fake living rooms, they sit at a desk and pretend to work at the fake office space and they take photos of themselves next to pretty much anything. Everytime I buy someting I need to ask for a 'fa piao' which (from what I've understood) is like a tax back kind of receipt - I'm not sure but it should mean that I will benefit from collecting them.

In the evening we went to Tai Yang Gong to meet my friend Richard. He took us to a nice hot pot place and taught us loads of things about China and the language. It was kind of like an intensive fast track course in a way, t'was great!! It is hilarious how everyone just chats to you in Chinese, even when they see that you have no idea what they are going on about they still yap away.