This day was a nightmare. Everyone was too tried to go visit temple city so we went shopping instead. We had four shopping stop planned. We arrived at only one. First we had lunch and then visited 3 shops in the shopping mall and then we had to leave because it was getting late. We had only an hour to make our 8:30pm dinner reservations. I thought I was going to die, 3 of the shops were only about 5 by 10m. I mean how many of the shelves of shirts can you try on? The answer, my friend, why all of them. First you get the ones you like which you can only do by trying them all on. Apparently they can look alright off the shelf but not so good on. Then once you have your 50 finalists you try them on and ween out the ones not so good and repeat until only one or two is left. You then decide that you don’t like any and it is someone else’s turn. I warn you now avoid shopping at all costs. It’s a trap.

“So Chiang, you need a skirt for the woman?” I asked Chiang.

“Yes, help me chose one.” So we looked around carefully for the perfect skirt. We hold it up proudly.

“Oh, that is an awful skirt boys, isn’t it. You are both such jokers.” One of the women piped up.

“Heh, Heh, yes we are, aren’t we Chiang.”

“Oh right, yes Mika, we were just saying that.”

“I mean the colour is obviously wrong.” I continue

“Absolutely, look terrible on her for sure.”

Once out of earshot, “Now we have to look again, this time without choosing any animal prints or tiger stripes.” I stated.

“I know, now it will be impossible to find something which actually looks good.”

We came away empty handed.

Hannah’s mother bought me a nice shirt which was very cool but I felt bad because it cost more than the stuff they bought Hannah. I’ll have to put it down to my whit and charm, I guess.

Coming out, “Oh I had the most marvellous day.” The ladies began.

“Yes, I really needed a day to relax and recover from sitting couped up on that train for two days.” The ladies continued, “Retail therapy is just marvellous.”

Meanwhile they had to practically carry me out. I was exhausted.

Later that night we went out to a fancy restaurant for dinner. Chris’s parents ordered for us and requested lots of seafood dishes and one beef dish. Seafood is not particularly one of my favourite dishes so I heaped up on the beef which looked delicious. I looking longingly at the beef while grace was being said and as soon as the amen’s were under way I forked up the biggest piece of meat I could find and hastily shoved it into the old pie hole. I started to sweat. A lot. I quickly filled my fork with rice and scoffed it into my mouth to stop the burning molten lava I had just eaten only to realise the rice was covered in the same beef sauce I had previously eaten. Fire mixed with molten lava and caused a nuclear meltdown in my mouth. I swear I went into instant cardiac arrest. My lips started swelling up and the sweat by now was steaming down my face. I looked around at everyone else who had not yet eaten and was just in time to hear Chris’s dad explain to everyone what the dishes contained.

“The seafood is all mild, but you might want to watch the beef it is extremely hot.”

By now I was choking and the throat was constricting into knots. I choked out a noise to confirm his quite accurate assessment of the beef, before the place where the fork had touched my lips began to feel the full effect of the slight contact of the molten lava. I did a double take on the fork to conform that it hadn’t yet melted and amazingly it hadn’t. The same could not be said about my mouth and lips which had lost all contact with my tongue seeing as it had just melted away.