Day Eleven

we woke up kinda late & had a late breakfast, consisting of the left-overs from last night's dinner & some things Ruoya's mom concocted, it was pretty terrible in all honesty. After eating, she took us to her office, where she showed us her company's research lab, where they research drugs to help fight against or prevent strokes. So after the 5 minute tour, we took a bus to another part of the town (the port) & went on a pretty crappy boat tour of the port (a real shit hole of a port anyways). After the tour, we walked around for a bit, but then took a taxi back to her apartment to eat some fruit & get our stuff to go to the train station to go to Tainjin (we were actually in TEDA (Tainjin Economic Development Area). The train ride took about an hour, once we got there, we waited for Ruoya's uncle to pick us up to go to dinner. We ate a large meal with his uncle, his wife, their son, his grandparents, his mom & the two of us. The restaurant specialized in Bao Zi, which are quite tasty dumplings that are shaped like balls and steamed. I ate quite a lot of them. After we finished eating, Ruoya's mom paid for everyone (as is customary) & asked for a receipt, here's where things got crazy. I'm not sure what was happening exactly, but there was a good bit of yelling at each other & the staff (turns out, they didn't feel like they could give them a receipt, they wanted one for liability's sake, etc.) The driver (same one) took us back to Beijing. At this same time, Ruoya started to break out again and his skin swelled and itched. While Ruoya sat suffering next to me, I listened to Harry Potter until we reached Beijing. Ruoya's aunt was waiting for us once we got back to Beijing & drove us to our apartment, where Ruoya went to sleep immediately to hopefully find some relief & I continued to listen to Harry Potter until bed.