Day 10 in China on Spring Break

It's a great day for shopping today! I went to the bank to change some money from American to RMB, but forgot my passport, CRAP! so I pulled as much money out that was allowed and we were on our way. Vicki, another Intel Lady of Leisure had just arrived and she was going to go with me and Asia downtown. Gave me a little more confidence than going at it alone. My goal was to remember where the purse place was that I bought at last time I was here. I know I have to go in a certain way in order to get the McDonalds and then make the left to walk directly into the shop. You see, it's in a place called Victory Plaza. It's like and underground mall in winding tunnels under the streets. There are several entrances and you can end up anywhere if you do not pay attention to signs(which are all in CHINESE! LOL) So I navigate by landmarks... Last time I tried to find the purse place, I did not go in the same way and could not find my landmarks and it took us a half an hour to find the place. This time I was confident and we went right to the place without a problem. so EXCITED!! yay me! So we walk up to the girl and I smile and point to the back hallway between other stores, she instantly knows what that meant. We wanted the back room stuff!! Vicki was so funny, she was like, "how did she know? what did you do?" The woman also recognized my current purse which I bought from there, I think that helped! Finally we get to the door, it's unlocked and it's like going to and underground play ground for women! AHHHHH, Vicki, I have to say, was a bit overwhelmed, which I spotted and told her to take her time and if she could not find a purse here, we were in big trouble! Started the process and picked out some amazing purses...after two hours of looking and deciding, I was ready for negotiating.

I had already had the experience before there of them trying to get me to pay more than what I knew was fair on our previous trip (six months ago, I had a chinese girl with me negotiating on my behalf and I know I got a good deal- side note: You see last time I was there, we had a set price, I had to come back the next day because I did not have enough money. The second day, no chinese girl with me so they tried to talk up prices and I pulled out the card that showed what we agreed on the day before..oh, ok. Then I threw a loop in and asked the price of a smaller purse, she quoted me twice as much as the big ones from the day before! I was like, ah HELL NO! so i continued to negotiate and go back and forth, while my husband looked on like, "lady, you have no idea who you are dealing with!" another man in the shop was giggling and gave the thumbs up to my husband as he watched my negotiating expertise! ) That was the beginning of the love of the american woman who would not budge and the chinese woman who thought she would not budge. So eventually we agreed on a price(a little more than I wanted but I threw in a wallet so it was acceptable) and the rest is purse history. I told her to give me cards and I would be back and tell all of my American friends about how good of a shop she had as well as good prices! We were all happy!) so here we are six months later I am going to find her shop again...so I was ready and already had a price in my head I would pay for each.....and so the game began!

You have to understand, I love the thrill of the deal. I will get what I want, and in China, where I do not speak the language, it does not matter! I pulled out may phone with every single Chinese Application on it and looked up the phrases I knew I would need but could not remember. Had to use, "du sha chien" (how much?) and "tai quay la" (to expensive) spellings are not correct but you get the idea. I told them, give me a price for all of them together and I did not want to hear how one was better than the other but I wanted the bottom line...She gave me a price and was only 300 RMB away from what I was going to pay so I negotiated it down to the price I wanted and of course the sales girl acted wounded and agreed after my persistance. I was happy, they were happy and of course there was the thrill of a sense of achievement of getting done what I wanted to and not feeling totally screwed or stupid in the process...during the two hours we spent there in the back room, Asia had been sitting on a stool the whole time talking with the sales girl practicing English and Chinese back and forth. While I was shopping, I noticed one of the older ladies talking to another older lady and looking at my boobs. I had on a VS bra and ladies you know they do wonders for holding things up. When they noticed I saw them, she proceeded to pic up her boobs and motion to them being up more and larger, I died laughing! No modesty here, but it was pretty funny! She knew she was caught, didn't care and then motioned to mine and smiled! I said in English, it's the BRA! and showed her the straps of it to make sure she understood, and we all laughed...In the end, Vicki thought she was not going to buy anything and I told her she needed to pick a purse to get her by until she could decided on what she really wanted. She came to China with NO PURSE! I asked her which one she liked the best and then began to negotiate for her, because we were "good friends and loyal friend" they gave a good price to Vicki, I told her to counter back what she wanted to pay(she had to convert to $ before she could decide) and they agreed, again acting wounded but because we were good friends, and I told them we would be back, they were willing to give a deal. They gave us all a phone charm as gifts and thanked us again and even walked us out to show us how to get out(grant it, it was the wrong street because I said yes, without know the actual name of the street we entered on but we appreciated the effort and thoughtfulness of the sales girl. We also bought some water bottles because we were so parched from the last two hours and when I went to pay the price, we ended up getting a deal on those too! It was turning out to be a great day!! So, we basically had to backtrack and try and figure out where we needed to go to get us out where we would know where we were and have lunch and then on to the next stop, massages/facials and just plain relaxing in the downtown massage place I knew and trusted...

We had lunch at PizzaHut , and before you say, yuck! you have to know this is like a gourmet pizza hut with many diffent foods and not just pizza and pretty ok with the exception of the greese! but we were starved and willing to eat anything. Next stop, the Tai Dian, for great massages. Asia and Vicki seemed so happy and ready for that! We all had the hour Chinese massage and hour foot massage, I paid extra an had a facial as my foot massage was taking place. Vicki informed me after watching my facial, next time she was doing the same. We all had our body massages at the same time and all felt great afterwards. This placed differed from the other massage place in that it has actual ambiance, sooooo relaxing and it smells good and fair prices too, just have to go downtown to get it. We then drove back to Campus Village where Javi spent the day with Matt(Vicki's husband) and their three kids after doing grocery shopping with all the kids. OMGosh! Matt was a brave man! I told Javi to help and supposedly he was a helper and not a hinderer when they were shopping. I honestly do not know how Matt did it! I was ready to kill Suonllen and both my kids and they are older when we went grocery shopping! Anyways, Javi was in heaven because he did not have to shop and look at purses all day and got to have a cheese crisp with real tortilla and chedder chese! (Remember they Diemerts just got here from the USA and brought some food staples with them! Smart people!) We left campus village, dropped the kids off at home (Asia was going to have left overs-her stomach has been upset and then go to bed) I was going to meet Suonllen and Sheree and Chris out.

They were eating a German Restuarant in 4 color city, which is in down town DDA(the area we live) and I could not have been more happy! SERIOUSLY!!! GERMAN FOOD? Hell yeah! So I ordered the Snitzel and was happy as could be! We hung out a little bit at the "NAGGING WIFE" and then called it a night since we were planning on going out tomorrow night for one last night before we go home, can do it saturday night with getting on a plane the next day. We will see what tomorrow will bring, until then...