i woke up 2 hours later than usual at 8:30, but didn't make a dent in my sleep deficit since i went to bed at 2:00. i surfed the web a little bit from bed before getting up to get ready to go to chongqing. it was raining a little bit today, which meant everything would be dirty and i have to watch where i step and avoid mud puddles. i ate a banana for breakfast then caught the 101 bus to the bus station. i managed to get the 10:00 bus leaving changshou.

i arrived in chongqing around 11:00 and realized i really didn't have much time. since my first stop was the bookstore in jiefangbei, but the time i went to the factory outlet place, it would already be noontime.

at the bookstore i bought a knitting book for my mother and a book about meat buns for my parents. as you can imagine with chinese cuisine, cook books are very popular. they're cheap too, just a few dollars for a book full of delicious chinese cuisine. i can't read the text, but the pictures look good.

i decided to walk to shanxi lu. i've been there enough times, but my mental layout of the city still isn't complete. i did manage to find it eventually after walking longer than i thought. i bought some scallion pancakes and ate them on a pedestrian sky bridge overlooking some crowded streets. later i wandered into another wholesale discount warehouse store and came across a place that sold shirts. after negotiating with the owner to let me try on a few shirts to make sure they fit, i bought a white shirt and a blue shirt, but with a faint pin-stripe pattern, just RMB$65 each.

from the nearest subway station i went to guanyinqiao. i discovered my dependable leather belt was finally falling apart, and wanted to check out some of the better retail stores to find a replacement leather belt. i could've found one cheaper in some chinese place, but i couldn't be sure if it was real leather. i went to H&M first. i saw a few i liked but they were RMB$149, around US$25, and i was looking for something cheaper. then i went to a uniqlo store. i've seen this brand before, but don't remember where. apparently they're a japanese chain. they had belts too, RMB$149 as well. i figured that was the going rate for a good belt, and decided to get one there. belts last a long time, maybe i can keep this one for another decade at least.

the rain became a steady light drizzle by that point. i was carrying a bunch of things and didn't feel much like doing anymore sighting so i decided to go back to changshou. i took the subway one stop to hongqihogou and got the 3:30. due to traffic however, we didn't get back until around 5:00.

after dropping off my things at the apartment, i went to get some groceries. originally i was resigned to my sunday night tradition of instant noodles, but saw they had frozen dumplings so i bought a package (the most expensive, figuring it'd be the most authentic and delicious). i cooked half when i got back home (around 6:00). they weren't anything special, and had a faint fishy taste to them for some reason. i ate them while watching an episode of castle, followed by the pilot of sleepy hollow, which reminds me of the movie warlock.

i planned on wearing one of my new shirts tomorrow, but after taking them out of their package, i realized they smelled like wet cardboard which is kind of awful, so i threw them into the washing machine.