The department store was deserted at mid-day except for the abundant and bored looking staff. We gave them something to remember as we buzzed about the children’s dept. oohing and aahing. Actually it was too expensive, no bargains here. Sue did find and buy a plastic Snoopy fan (hand held traditional thing, this is China) for about 75 cents and Bruce got a notebook. It has been very warm and muggy so Sue put the fan to good use right away.
The better adventure of the day, was the supermarket across the street. It had three floors. The ground floor was small shops. We bought Roxy a cute pair of leather shoes. The next one up was like a K mart or Walmart. You could even buy an electric scooter for the equivalent of $250.
The top floor was the grocery part. That was great to see, except for the frog and turtle section. I scooted right out of there. More fun was watching long noodles made by hand, learning how to weigh our fruit, and just seeing all the variety of goods, dried seafood, pressed ducks, pastries, frozen dumplings, and snack foods. The floor workers wore paper hats and masks, but interestingly, the butchers in plain view did not. We wandered till hunger pangs said it was time to head for the cashier so we could move on to KFC for lunch. Coffee must be very expensive because I watched the cashier remove the security tags off of the cans of a customer in front of us.
Lunch at KFC was the mix of cultures that we had expected. The pictures on the English language menu looked familiar, but we were cautioned that some of our choices were spicy. They were, but not excessively so.
A taxi ride back to the hotel, a bit of a rest, and we were off to the Nepali shops in the “Venice” area. We had scoped out the area on our first day but didn’t want to commit till we got a feeling for the general price range and bargaining ethic of the place. The folks at this store were especially anxious to sell as much of their stuff as possible rather than have to haul it back, they were extremely friendly, and they spoke good English. Prices were down to about a quarter of the marked price and the offerings were all very interesting. Sue got a beautiful silver pendant with amethyst, quartz, and garnet. Bruce bought a small replica Buddhist prayer wheel, and the clerk threw in a carved wooden mask as a gift. Both are handmade and very colorful. Payment got a bit complicated as these purchases drained us of all our Chinese funds, but three US dollars were all it took to round things out. Dan and Sarah got a matched pair of dragon carvings and some clothing.
A few other stops along the way, including a Berlin information place displaying a number of familiar pictures, a Kashmiri store where Sarah bought some cloth hangings, and an information place from Leeds. Neither of the information places was staffed by people from the place that they represented, and neither of them really could offer much of any information beside letting you look at the pictures on the wall. But the Leeds place had four baseball caps from Leeds United Football Club, and the clerk gave them all to us.
There has been a lot of excitement around here all day with what we assume to be the dress rehearsal (dress with bluejeans underneath) for the closing ceremony for the Expo. Women in elegant dresses, dancers, and lots and lots of soldiers participating in rhythmic movements, carrying flags of many nations and waving them to the rhythm, and opening and closing colored parasols, again to the rhythm. Some must have been wondering, “I signed up in the Army to do this?”
Dinner was once more at the hole-in-the-wall restaurant at the carnival. Great food at about $1.50 each.
After that we wandered around the carnival for a bit. Sarah and one of Dan’s colleagues braved the amazingly tall rotating arm ride. As for the rest of our group, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Tee Shirt of the Day
Somewhere between the creative process and the production line, two adjacent letter Ts got too close together and were interpreted by the next person in line, probably not an English speaker, as an N. This led to production of the Tee Shirt of the Day, BUNER ME UP, seen on an attractive female.
Runner Up
A shirt on sale at the department store we visited.
BASKETBALL
(Picture of a basketball)
AIRBONE
RESERVE
Sign of the Day
We added another video of the market area to yesterday’s blog. Scroll down if you missed it the first time around.
Tomorrow we head back to Shanghai for the weekend.
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