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Since it was a 3 day weekend last week because of the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival（端午節）, Thalia and I decided to explore Nanjing a little bit more. We took the Metro for the first time and to my surprise, the subway system is very similar to that of Hong Kong's. It's not only clean and neat, but it's also extremely easy to comprehend. Everything is computerized，which means that you don't need an actual paper ticket to ride the subway. Like Hong Kong's octopus card, Nanjing also has a value card that allows you to add money onto it in order to ride the public transportation. But of course I didn't get the card because there's no point in me paying for one when I'm not going to be here after 3 months. We just went to the ticketing machine to get a “ticket”. To my surprise, the ticket wasn't really a ticket but it was a little computer chip （looks like a casino chip) that you just tap onto the machine and the gate will open. Super cool! =）
Of course the first thing we wanted to do was find some places to go shopping. I was able to research some of the shopping districts close to our house. We took the metro two stops from where we live Gulou（鼓楼）to Xiejiekou（新街口）. Xinjiekou is one of the ten "Famous Commercial Streets of China", only preceded by Wangfujing Street in Beijing and Nanjing Road in Shanghai. It has the best facilities, commodities and services, assembling plenty of shopping plazas such as Nanjing Xinbai, the Central Mall, Golden Eagle International, Grand Ocean Department Store, Deji Plaza, Jinling Department Stores etc. Plenty of world-famous brands are also located in this area！
Sorry, I do not know the English name of this shopping mall. But all I know is that we were able to find an H&M there! There is also a Watson's (similar to a Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada) and a great Japanese noodle place called Ajisen Ramen（there's one in Toronto as well）. There are also other great restaurants in this mall as well. It comes highly recommended!
Golden Eagle International 金鹰国际 （89 Hanzhong Road, Xinjiekou 江苏省南京市白下区石鼓路100号）
Right across the street is t his mega-store is similar to Sogo in Hong Kong / Japan or Macy's in the States. Though it doesn't have the more famous high end brands like LV or Chanel, but they do have some popular cosmetic counters such as Fancl, Shiseido and Kiehl's. However, the prices are more expensive than Hong Kong and even in Canada. Each floor sold different things, for example the first floor is lady’s wear, the second floor is men’s wear，the third floor is youth fashion and so on。The layout is very, very similar to Sogo.
The night view of Xinjiekou area. Local people tend to stay pretty late because all the stores do not close until 10pm everyday，which is amazing because the malls are not as crowded at this time.
This is what I ended up getting from the first day of shopping：H&M skinny jeans ￥179 （20 CAD)，H&M sheer bra/panties ￥100 （13 CAD)，OPI nail polish ￥39 （5 CAD)，face exfoliating pad ￥5 （60 Cent），water bottle ￥10 （1 CAD)，polka dot sheer dress ￥99 （13 CAD)，white purse ￥65 （9 CAD).
We had lost track of time while we were shopping and thus, we didn't even get the chance to eat dinner. I went home and made some instant noodles for dinner。I've been loving instant noodles for the past week! Haha! Even Hello Kitty enjoyed the meal too！=）