Day 21 – 28: May 13th to May 20th - Shopping

On Alex's days off, we went out to a few places. We went to Nan Chan Se, which is a giant market area, with a lot of crap, for insane markups, but every once in a while you find a gem. Alex noticed the old Tamagotchi games we used to play as a kid. They're the little electronic pets you'd keep on a keychain, and press buttons to feed, pet, etc. These ones could talk to each other through infrared though, so it was pretty cool. We're going back to buy a few, since you get better deals in bulk.

I also saw a few sunglasses shops, but it's hard to tell which ones are good and which aren't. Price is definitely not an indicator, as many will sell theirs with giant markups to make us think they're good, others will be honest and offer prices more realistic to them, and some seem like they're good prices, but are actually crap. I stopped at one shop and tried on a few pairs, and she had a little box you could hold and while wearing the glasses, you could see the circles in the box (meaning they're polarized sunglasses), but I still don't know if they have UV protection, and I'm not partial to cancer. Wearing sunglasses without UV protection is horrible for the eyes, since your pupils actually open more to let in more light, and therefore more cancerous UV. She also wanted 90 yuan for them, which was disgustingly priced, so we walked out on her. I'll go back and get a pair soon enough as well.

The last thing worth mentioning was the pet aisle, which was fun and sad, all at once. It was a small alley way that was covered in shade, and people were selling all sorts of animals, from dogs and cats, to snakes and lizards, to fish of all sorts, to gerbils and mice. None of the animals were stored in a way that any North American would call humane (four or five puppies crammed into a cage meant for maybe one full grown cat). Lots of very hairy dogs meant for cold climates too, which I've noticed is very trendy here in China. The rich people love to have really thick coat dogs. Huskies and the like. It's sad, so the end result of the alley was a “Oh that's terrible, but they're sooooo cute” dilemma.

The next day, Alex and I went out for random chores and got a surprisingly large number of things done, considering how confused and complicated things can be here (China's so inefficient sometimes). She stopped at a little Claire's-like store and bought a few nail polishes, and other random girly crap, and we went out and finally got around to buying me a cell phone. We shopped around at a few stores, and finally found one with one for about 250 yuan, but the one I saw for 195 yuan when I first got to China was nowhere to be seen. It seems it was a clearance price, because this one was the next model up (it looked identical). They also wouldn't haggle, not even a single yuan. I was disappointed, I love the haggling part. We also bought a bunch of these little squishy toys that have to be seen to be believed. They're liquid inside, so you throw them at walls, or floors, and they flatten out, but slowly regain their shape again. I bought a bunch of them, and got a good deal on them (or I think so, it's so hard to tell here). The guy wanted 5 yuan each, I got 6 of them for 20 yuan. I probably could have gotten cheaper, because he agreed quickly, but either way, a lady in Nan Chan Se wanted 10 yuan each so I feel I got a decent deal. It takes so much getting used to just how cheap everything really is. Converting to Canadian prices is a haggler's worst enemy, because when you think “Oh, it's just over three bucks, no problem”, you've just gotten ripped off about 2 bucks. Thinking about how much we pay for the same products in Canada now makes me sick.

Alex and I also took off to the fabric market, which we nicknamed “FabricLand” (after the North American store). It's really cool, there's a bunch of tailors standing around, with huge rolls of different fabrics, of all different colours and patterns (even camouflage green), and you can have whatever you want made from them. I looked around, and it's a bit overwhelming, so I plan on bringing Jessica for her fashion sense, and I'll have one of them make a suit for me. I already asked and the suit jacket should cost around 40 yuan (before haggling) to make. This is a great example of why converting prices is a bad idea in China. 40 yuan is less than 8 bucks, for a custom tailored suit jacket. If the tailor does a good job, I plan on having about 6 more done, and I may get a random colour suit made just for the hell of it (since they're so cheap). I'm thinking camouflage.