Hangzhou: Final Redemption!

Somehow, Chris and I stumbled through the bus system and made it to Hangzhou's middle city again, and set out for food and a hotel. Hangzhou being as big as it is (6+ million people), it's an expensive city, and cabs start at a whopping 10 yuan (most start their meters at 5, Wuxi starts theirs at 8 yuan, then tacks another 1 yuan on top of whatever the final fare is). The hotels were all starting their prices at about 300 yuan a person, at least. We were really starting to get desperate, and were about to settle for a double for 400 yuan, when we stumbled upon a hole in the wall. We were fortunate enough to find out it accepted foreigners, and it was only 120 for a double! I tried to keep my poker face on, as we saw the room, and it turned out to be slightly better than the last one we were in, with Jordana and Thomas. We paid, and finally, after about 2 hours of searching, we had a place to lay rest to our stuff.

Somewhere along the way, we also stopped to eat. Chris saw a place and picked it because he thought he had seen it recommended in a tourist pamphlet we had picked up at a hotel. It turned out he was wrong, and we had stumbled into a hot pot restaurant. Hot pot is really fucking expensive, so we just ordered a few small dishes. The meat dish I ordered turned out to be a local delicacy, so I lucked out in a way. It kind of sucked, though. The taste wasn't great, and it was just big gobs of beef with giant pieces of fat attached. I bit the meat off of the fat, and left the fat, since the texture made me feel... "uneasy", shall we say? I got a lot of stares when people started noticing the large pieces of fat left in a pile on my little plate. Chris got a full duck, and ended up eating brain right out of the skull. I didn't have the stomach for that one.

Finally, it was time to set off for the night market. This is easily my favourite part of the trip. It's not the shopping that I love, it's the haggling. I've got a bunch of stuff in my room that I plan on just giving away, because it's not a great reminder of the trip, but it's cool, and very Chinese, so it makes a good gift. Stuff like that is always fun to haggle over, because if I can't get a good price, I can easily walk away from it, so it's so much fun. I have a ton of little Buddha figurines and toys to give away when I get back. The basic sum of the night: I picked up a silk robe for 70 yuan (haggled down from over 200 yuan), a fan for 12 yuan (haggled down from 45), and 4 painted scrolls that are very cool. They wanted 50 yuan for each, and I only wanted one, so I started haggling for one scroll. They didn't want to sell them apart because they were a set, showing what the mountain looked like in each season. I managed to get them down to 85 for all four. I felt kind of bad, because I realized halfway through why the guy was getting so pissed off. I was haggling with his wife, and I was haggling hard, when I realized that he must be the guy who painted them. Every time I gave a cheap price, he got more and more agitated, and I realized I was essentially arguing over the price of his handiwork. I let up at 85 yuan, but I'm sure if I didn't start thinking about that, I could have gotten them for 70. Stupid morals.

The last story of the day was also at the night market. Both Chris and I had stopped at a big stall full of silk, on separate occasions, as we had split up while shopping. I had tried to haggle for a shirt that looked quite good on me, but the guy wouldn't budge below 100 yuan. I knew how cheap silk was, and the best part is I kept asking both Chinese people, and foreigners, how much they would pay for it. The consensus was about 30 yuan, no more than 50. I laughed at the vendor, but he wouldn't go below 100. I couldn't believe it, so I tried the walk. The walk is when you act discouraged by the uber high prices, and walk away from the stall. About 95% of the time, it results in the vendor yelling after you either "Ok! Ok!" and agree to your price, or them yelling significantly lower prices the further you get. It's how I got postcards from 18 yuan down to 5 yuan in Luoyang. Here, however, the walk did NOTHING. The guy was invincible, and seemingly didn't care if he made the sale. Here, I had about 5 or 6 passerbyers offering 15 to 40 yuan for the same shirt, all saying that's what it's worth. The guy even sold a Chinese girl one of these shirts for 40, and I had told him I knew that, but he wouldn't even try below 100! He was determined to get the "Foreigner Discount" out of me. Foreigner Discount being a negative discount, of course.

On the other hand, Chris had been dealing with him, and also couldn't get a good price on a different shirt. Granted, this shirt was better quality, and wasn't silk, which is dirt cheap, but Chris couldn't get him to go down to a good enough price. Finally, he walked as well. Chris and I both went together, and he tried for the shirt again, but because of how hard I had haggled before, and how I laughed in the guy's face so many times when he made me "special offers", I think he was pissed off. He wouldn't give either of us good deals, and I got a first time experience here. He said Good Bye to us! I had never seen a vendor use the walk on us. Normally, they're pretty desperate to make the sale.

To make my point about how cheap silk was, I showed him the robe I had bought at another shop for minimal markup. It had way more material, and way more work in it, since it was covered in dragons. He burst out laughing, and pulled out the same robe, and told me "Yeah, it sucks". He started laughing at me, telling me the robe isn't worth anything, and told me the stitching sucks. He kept laughing and saying it'll tear on me. Granted, the stitching does suck, but I was going to have it reinforced in Wuxi anyway. Tailor work is cheap in Wuxi. He said the robe was worth 60 yuan, and I shut him up by telling him that's what I paid (a 10 yuan fib). By this point, he was too irritated with me to give Chris a good deal, and we just had to leave. Frustrating, but I still consider it fun. No matter how many vendors I piss off.