Fuzi Mio and Nanjing

        In Nanjing I was staying with my friend, and freshman roommate Mike. Mike is also in a program in China, but not an immersion program. He lives in an apartment with several other students. I didn't get into Nanjing until fairly late at night, so not much happened the first day. The second day he had to tutor one of his students for a few hours, and sent me to a place called Fuzi Mio (I'm sure this is spelled wrong) where I could wander around and shop. We planned to meet back at his apartment at 4:00 later that afternoon.

        The market was interesting, although it was more like a shopping arcade along the river. A few shops, nothing too terribly interesting. It was worth spending a few hours though, and I enjoyed my time there. Knowing it would take me twenty, maybe thirty minutes to find a cab, I planned on leaving at about 3:30. In Nanjing it is incredibly difficult to hail a cab. Very often they will choose not to drive foreigners, and occasionally will decide not to take locals depending on where they were going.

        I began my hunt for a cab at 3:30. I ended my hunt for a cab at 6:00. It took me roughly two and a half hours to hail a cab and get him to drive me to Mike's apartment. The few cabs I did manage to flag down, or pull over looked at the place I wanted to go and promptly drove off. After wandering around several hours hoping to find a cab, I finally managed to stop one who was dropping some people off. When he refused to take me, I pulled a 100 Yuan note from my wallet and bribed him. The cab should have cost 20 Yuan at most. I finally arrived back to a concerned Mike, and a great story.