Day six: “Should I be following this man into this building just for a purse?”

Day six: “Should I be following this man into this building just for a purse?” quote by me, Hollie.

Another day of site seeing with our friend Alex, he picked us up in his car and drove us to Yuyuan gardens and bazaar. This is a picture of the opening to the Yuyuan area. We drove through what I imagined we would see when we got here in China. The neighborhood was very traditional, old Chinese.

There were vendors all over the place. People were sitting along the side of the road playing Mah Jong together. We went into the bazaar area first and I quickly needed to learn how to say ‘no, I don’t want that, quit bugging me”. One young vendor told me how to say “not want”, “bu-yao”….I thought he was trying to trick me into saying yes (because of the way he was smiling at me), but I quickly figured out he was probably laughing at my inability to pick up the language, not trying to trick me. I learned that if I say “no, thanks”, or just “no” they keep bugging me, but as soon as I say it in Chinese correctly they leave me alone immediately. Great, a new skill that I will need here in china to adapt; I am adapting, whoo-hoo!!

We had lunch at a somewhat famous dumpling house called Huxingting TeaHouse. It was built in 1784. The tea house is surrounded by water filled with giant carp and turtles; it has a zig-zag type bridge that leads to it. The pictures below are of the tea house and bridge. I didn't realize until I downloaded them now that they don' t really show how cool the bridge and tea house look.

Apparently, the zig-zag design on the bridge protects the building from evil spirits (evil spirits can’t turn corners you know, but neither can radiation, so maybe they’ve got a point here). We waited in a very long line to eat; apparently we weren’t the only ones who heard about this place. It was really good. We ate several dumplings, sort of like dim sum at home.

I really wanted to buy a purse while we were in Shanghai. I had heard that the really good ones were hidden from the public. I also heard that sometimes they are factory originals that didn’t make it to the stores. We found someone who would show us some purses. We walked for quite a ways (the young man kept saying it was right around the corner. Corner after corner after corner and we were starting to wonder when it would end…Lee, I figured you would appreciate this…sort of like your apartment will be ready soon and it took two months) before we were lead into the back of a building. I have to say I was a little nervous at first, but I had Jeff and Alex with me and I figured between the two of them no one would try anything. At least Alex would know what they were saying if they were going to mug us. To give you a picture it was an alley that turned into an hallway that weaved through horrible smells, people cooking food, doing laundry in buckets, flickering lights and oozing walls. We bargained for quite a while before I settled on two purses (one for me and one for my friend, Mei….I got you a LV purse Mei). I’m not very good at this haggling thing, but I’m getting better. By the time we leave I’ll be ready for a trip to Mexico, NOT.

Another successful day, I got my Prada bag, it’s pretty cute. Oh, and the site seeing was nice too.