Market shopping wow!!
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2008
1
5
14
Trip End
Dec 01, 2008
Beijing,
China
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Ok... Well I have a few entries to make today since I am a little behind! Well on Day 4 our last in Beijing was a fun and intense one to say the least! It started with going to see this famous drum tower that Denise had been talking about all week. It was basically just a big tower that we had to walk up steep stairs to and see them do a drum presentation at every half hour.
Oh I forgot to mention that the morning before we left we "booked" our flight online but we had to photocopy our passports and credit card information to them. This made no sense to us that we could not just purchase them online but we did that before we left. So we feel good that we have a ticket from Xi'an to Shanghai. I will get back to that in a min.
After the Drum Tower was off to this market, a shoppers Paradise. We had heard about them and how you haggle with them to get a good price. We had NO idea how intense this place was going to be. As soon as we walked in we were attacked by sales ladies trying to sell us "designer" watches. Me and Frank were looking at some Rolexes and such. We had been told to at least start at half the price or less. Well the "Rolex" watch I was looking at was quoted at close to 300 yuan. This is roughly about $60 USD. I bargained with the lady and got her down to 120 yuan so close to $17 USD. I was feeling pretty good about this purchase and Frank got one and Denise got a nice "Gucci" watch. Next up electronics... Frank bought a fake Ipod Shuffle for his mom Gladys for Christmas, such a good son :) They tried to sell me a fake iphone, it looked kinda like the real one but there was no internet function and I could not be around my friends and they like oh Nathan.. you got an iphone and then I whip that crap out. They pulled another one out and it didn't even look like an iphone, tried to sell that one as the first generation... not falling for it. We kept telling them that all this stuff was fake and the guy there was like if you want anything real then you don't wanna be shopping here. He was right so on we progressed... We went upstairs to the bags/clothes/shoes section and this level had nothing on the first floor. They were grabbing us as we tried to walk away. We were getting hungry and needed a break from the crazies there so grabbed some KFC. I had a chicken leg, fries, soda, and some sorta chicken sandwich with veggies in it.. not like home.
So now after being energized back we went. We went to the pottery type place and I brought my "A" game to the table we were learning that even though we got good buys on stuff we could do so much better!
First up chopsticks, they quoted some crazy amount but we go them for like $3, good deal but I know I could have got them cheaper. Next up a tea set, very cute nice clay tea set. Original price over 200 yuan. I was not having that and told them 40 yuan was all I would spin. The trick is to walk away, then that is when they really come down on the price. I got it for 45 yuan. Now mind you we all are haggling over cents, not even dollars with these people. I mean they would try and up the price by like 5 or 10 yuan and we would not budge Kinda sad, but hey we didn't want to over pay! As we walked away Denise was like "you are good". We would then do a little bad cop good cop which they weren't happy with us about but we got better pricing!
Next was the crazy shoe ladies, I mean one hit me with fake Puma as we were trying to run buy. They would attack you with their products. Denise and Frank both got some shoes and then on to the fake bags. Denise a "Dolge and Gabana" and Frank fake Gucci. I wasn't needing a bag but they did have this bag with wheels and I have started to get a lot of stuff so I need some more room. Originally they told me close to 400 yuan, what did I get the price down to... 105!!! That is about $17 USD. The young girl across the aisle who Denise was haggling with told us she thought Americans were rich... We said not these Americans. She then compared me to a Korean on my bargaining skills, not sure if that was an insult or not.
So what did we leave with:
Frank- Fake ipod shuffle, gucci bag, watch, little box, Buddha man, pumas
Denise- Gucci watch, D&G bag, speakers for her ipod, magnet, shoes
Nathan- Rolex, Swiss bag, chopsticks, tea set
Total spent around $150
Ok back to the hostel to get our bags and confirm that we have our tickets Frank goes to call them and comes back and sits saying that he is not going to say anything to us for a few mins, then he tells us... well we don't have them.... We are not happy at all at this point. Apparently they couldn't see our documents clearly. So we have a train Ticket to Xian but nothing to Shanghai... We are on crunch time cause we have to make it to the train station.... I was looking at hostels in Xi'an and in Shanghai cause I didn't know where we were going to be that next night....
We took digital photos then sent emailed them to Elong and had to leave for the Train (in the taxi there we got an email confirming out tickets, thank god). Now Frank will not be killing Denise. We get to the train station and it is a mass of people all around us. Funny thing is I don't see our train on the board. We were at the wrong station.... We have little over an hour for our train and back to grab a taxi to the other train station. We get there in time and I am tired and hungry and as you know I get a little cranky when I haven't eaten. We grab some McDonald's. As I'm sitting outside a store with the bags all these Chinese are walking by me like they have never seen a white/American before. It was a little weird and scary cause all the bags were with me. Denise poked her head out and was like they are all staring at you, I was like oh... I know.
We get on our train and have the room to ourselves, 4 beds bunk bed style. It wasn't too bad of a sleep I wore ear plugs and we passed out....
Tell my next one!
Nathan
