Let's Make a Deal

January 15, 2010

Today was a phenomenal day. Oh where to begin! I have so much to say today!

I woke up around 7 A.M. this morning to Skype John and my mom. It was so nice to get to talk to them for a while! I’ve missed them so much! I was disappointed I did not get to talk to dad and Carr, but I know they are busy having fun on the high school ski retreat.

After Victoria, Emma and I Skyped, we all went back to bed for a little bit. Today was our free day off and we were going to make the best of it! Around 11 A.M. our time we finally rolled out of bed and began getting ready for the day.

We decided since we had conquered the city by taxi we should conquer the city by subway. First of all, imagine New York City. Now Imagine New York (the state). Imagine everyone that lives in the state of New York, in one city. This is how crowded Shanghai is. The traffic on the roads is comparable to Atlanta traffic during rush hour. The traffic on the subways is equal to all the traffic in the New York City subways, multiplied by 10. That is not an exaggeration. We did well finding our way to our final destination, and buying the appropriate ticket. A nice man showed us how to change the machine to English so we had no problem finding our destination. The subway was literally like packed sardines in a can, maybe even worse. Nevertheless, we stuck together and enjoyed our experience.

We arrived at the Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology. Imagine hundreds and hundreds of mini stores, all together, underground. These stores are bigger than kiosks, but no bigger than an average hotel room. Each store sells items from souvenirs, to nock off shoes, purses, wallets, clothes, jewelry and electronics. Needless to say, even though we knew we could get all this in Beijing, we went CRAZY!

At first I was trying not to buy much. However I walked into a store that had nock off Tiffany and Co. Jewelry and caved in. I can’t say what all I bought because that will give away presents I got for people! Let’s just say I got a fantastic deal. I also bought myself an over the shoulder purse satchel to carry around in big cities. I could possibly sell it on eBay after the trip, but for $17 it was a good deal. The original price was 880 RMB; however I was able to pay only 100 RMB. I “got good discount because you are first customer. I also was able to get a Buddha for my brother. His nickname growing up was Buddha Belly, and mine was burger butt. So of course I had to tease him and get him a small Buddha. That won’t be his only souvenir. While walking around this indoor, underground market we had people chasing after us. Literally, we would walk out of a shop and they would chase us down the hall saying “hey lady, hey lady, you name your price. What is the maximum you pay?” they would also say, “no joking” when we would name a price that they thought was too low. It was so funny and so much fun!

We discovered an underground pearl market as well. The pearls here were so much cheaper than the ones we purchased earlier this week. I was so upset! A ring I purchased for 80 RMB was only 10 at these stores. We got ripped off so bad earlier in the week. At this new pearl market they were also definite real pearls, because they performed all the tell tale test on them! The owners of the stores in the pearl market were willing to give us the cheapest price possible, so it didn’t even require haggling. They would even customize a strand for us. They had nice seats like at a real jewelry shop and gave us bottled water. The Chinese are so hospitable!

Around 5:00 we finally stopped to get a bite to eat. We ate at this Brazilian restaurant. There were cards on the table that said yes, and no. When you wanted more you kept the yes side flipped up. When you didn’t want anymore you put the no side up. It was s cool and very inexpensive for all you can eat. I was able to get lots of American salad, and was again, very excited!

We then went in search of the subway to take back to the hotel. On our way there we discovered yet another underground market. At this market, it was set up like all the others. However they had fabric on the walls and custom made clothing overnight for you. We saw gorgeous coats and dresses and nice suites all ranging from 400-700 RMB which is about $80-$100 American dollars. To have something custom made, this was a great price! We wish we could have found this underground market sooner.

We finally found our way back to the subway, when it dawned on us that it was rush hour. Rush hour in China is the most unorganized, chaotic, crazy experience ever. People literally packed themselves into subways so no one could move a millimeter. We found it funny and just “went along with the flow”. We had no trouble coming back to the hotel. It was such an experience riding the Shanghai subway system.

After we got back to the hotel we settled our Internet fee for our room. It was originally 534 RMB however we found flaws in what they were charging us and were able to only pay about 420. We divided it among how much we had each used it. Of course I used it the most out of the three of us! It really ended up only costing me $20, and Victoria and Emma less than that.

We are so pleased with our haggling skills today. I know I’m going to come home and try and haggle in a department store for something! We leave at 6:30 A.M. for the airport. We have a flight to Chengdu in the morning. It is about 3 hours away from Shanghai. Although we are sad to leave Shanghai, we are counting down for Beijing, and can’t wait to see what the rest of the trip has in store.