the Subway debacle

Last night, as we discussed what to eat for dinner, Ed said that he felt like a sandwich.  (I felt so proud of myself that he was the first one to express a desire for some American food and not me!)  We remembered seeing a Subway somewhere while we were exploring the city earlier in the week, so we asked the hotel concierge to direct us there again.  He was a bit unsure about how to explain how to get there.  He said that it was not far from Walmart, inside a mall that was several stories tall, but the shopping area has several malls like that, and he didn't know exactly how to explain which one it was.  We thanked him and started out on our quest for sandwiches.  We took the 15 minute walk to the shopping area and started searching.  It took us a little while, but we finally found it on the second story of one of the mall buildings.  We were so proud of ourselves!  So we began the process of trying to order.  Ed had looked up the Subway website back at the hotel and taken pictures of the menu items with his phone, so he showed the woman behind the counter the pictures of the sandwiches we wanted.  We managed to point and nod our way through the topping choices and were watching her wrap up the sandwiches when we realized. . .we had left Ed's wallet back at the hotel room!  We had my wallet, but all of our Chinese money was in Ed's!  We tried to use our credit card, but they didn't take credit cards (or at least, not American credit cards).  We tried to pantomime our apologies and explanations.  The woman was very gracious, and even directed us to a nearby ATM machine, but to no avail - our ATM card wouldn't work in the machine.  We couldn't figure out any other options, so we finally had to admit defeat and head back to the hotel.  Poor Lili, she must have been getting so hungry, but she didn't whine a bit!  By the time we made it back to the hotel, we were hot and tired and really hungry!  So we ended up ordering room service again.  So much for our Subway dinner - but at least we ended up with a good story and a funny memory of our quest!