the Watercube at night

Today was our free day where we were entirely on our own. All of last week we were planning on what to do for our free day. We left around 9:30 to get on the subway to go to the Pearl Market. At the Pearl Market they sell….you guessed it…. pearls. It’s 3 or 4 floors high and the second and third floors are mostly dominated by pearls. There is a mixture of souvenir stuff and other jewelry on these floors, but it was the first floor that was the most interesting. The first floor had everything from rugs to leather wallets and from watches to digital cameras. We spent a lot of time bargaining for things on the first floor. Some people there asked for a ridiculous amount for something like a fake Rolex. I ended up getting a really nice Chinese watch instead of a fake Rolex (although I bargained that fake Rolex down to about $6). After the pearl market, we all went to KFC (which is the second time I’ve had it in two days) for lunch and then went to the very near Temple of Heaven. The Temple of Heaven is an ancient Buddhist temple that is crafted from the same architecture that I mentioned I really liked before. The temple covers a lot of area and is made up of three different parts, none of which I know the purpose for. After we left the temple we were planning to go to the Happy Magic Watercube waterpark at the Watercube where Michael Phelps won his record 8 gold medals at the 2008 Olympics. We got to the waterpark at 5 and it was a lot smaller than I thought, even though I shouldn’t have expected much for an indoor waterpark. They had a wave pool that had a huge screen above it where music videos were playing. The only thing that turned out to be a bummer was that they had 3 or 4 slides that were closed. Other than that, most of their slides were really fun. They had a slide where you got in a chamber and then the floor dropped out from underneath you. Then you went down an almost vertical drop and the slide curved back upwards. That was a really fun slide. Afterwards however, I saw a girl go down it and not quite make it over the upwards part. I had no idea how she was supposed to get out until I saw a lifeguard go down and open a hatch in the slide. Apparently they expected people to get stuck on this slide. The best slide was a tube slide that spit you out into a toilet-like swirl and ended up in the lazy river. The watercube was all lit up after the sun went down and it looked really cool in there. We left there at 9 when it closed and caught taxis back to our hotel. Me and a few others were so exhausted and hungry when we got back that we called McDonalds and had it delivered to my room. McDelivery is very convenient, but it truly is the epitome of laziness.