After class last Friday Kris, Jim and I ran to the ZUFE foreign affairs office and collected out monthly pay and then rushed to the bus and train station so we could rush to Shanghai and spend it all. They are sadly leaving after this term and this was one of the last chances Kris and Jim could shop for souvenirs for their friends and relatives back home. But before shopping we needed to eat. We had planned on eating western meals all weekend. We love Chinese food but sometimes you need a change. So after checking into our really nice apartment/hotel we caught a taxi to Peter’s Tex-Mex restaurant (same chain as the one in Chengdu). After filling up with chips, salsa, quesadillas, margaritas, and burritos we hopped in another taxi and started our shopping at Lisa’s pearls, which is located on Nanjing Dong Lu. While Jim was outside, innocently eating his McDonalds’ ice cream cone, and Kris was inside picking out pretty baubles, two girls came up to Jim and asked him what he was doing. He dutifully replied “waiting for my wife”. “Where is she?” “She is shopping”. Girls replied “wife shop shop we work work”. He declined their offer but we are still teasing him about it.
Next morning we went to a recommended underground metro station that has many stores that stock many “famous brands” (knock-offs). We immediately picked up a “guide” that we couldn’t get rid of and we were steered into many many shops. Almost all of these very small shops had secret rooms with more “famous brands” hidden away. We quickly figured out that the back secret rooms had a lot of crap and if you wanted real leather you needed to stay out of the secret room. Kris was looking for something with real leather I was looking for the “name” but I also wanted nice quality. Jim quickly did some great bargaining and bought two heavy chess sets which gave him the perfect excuse to abandon us so that he could take them back to the hotel. We tried to lose our guide by ducking into the nearest KFC for lunch but no luck he found us and handed us off to his wife who actually found and saved a table at KFC for us (tables are hard to find in fast food restaurants and you generally have to share). I guess she realized that her husband had got us to spend all the money we were going to at that group of stores so with the promise of Merrill shoes (that Kris was looking for) she coaxed us back on the metro and she took us to another group of “famous brand” stores. Surprisingly there were no shoes and after about 4 or 5 hours we were sort of in a daze, which I am sure they like to see cause both our bargaining skills and resistance were beginning to fail. We escaped, met up with Jim, had dinner at a Burger King and resumed shopping at YuYuan Garden. Great place for traditional small souveniers
Sunday we loaded up our purchases and began the adventure of getting back to Xiasha
