HK for a day
so we had to get up early today to catch the morning 8 a.m. ferry back to hong kong. this was goign to be interesting as everyone's baggage, emotional and otherwise, has about tripled. it's been a long three weeks i can't believe we even have longer to go. we're all sorta jealous of the professors and classmates heading back to LAX today, but excited to do some more shopping in two new cities!
eric and johnny leave, as do all of the profs, which means it's just the non-chinese speakers left ... me, cecilia, the two thai girls, and taka. it will be fun negotiating the prices at the market with no native speaker present. you can't even use your hands to hold up fingers since have a totally different way of doing numbers with hands! it's kinda cool though, and it's all on one hand, which makes it handy for holding up item and negotiating price simultaneously! if the number is higher than 10, we just take turns punching numbers into a calculator, clearing them, re-entering them and clearing them in mock disgust and anger.
we visited the ladies market which is just named that way even though it has goods for all. the prices weren't as high as we expected so many purchases were made. we keep trying to save our mojo for china where prices are way cheaper, but it just didn't work so well last night. in fact, we have all bought second pieces of luggage to haul stuff home in.
later, we walkd around the charming park by teh harbor and then hit the night market. taka bought these three sqeezy/slimy toy things that you throw on the ground, they splat, then reform. he got them for $10 HK and we all had a chuckle when three booths down the guy was selling them for $5. taka took off for the booth where he made his purchase to scream injustice and funny thing .... the guy had forgotten english all of a sudden! he did give taka a free extra toy .... but no refund. hee hee.
negotiating in tough. sometimes i go too low and they rip the calculator out of my hand and wave me away in disgust, but that's usually after the winning bid, when they've already snatched the money out of my hand. i've never really made an enemy for purchasing something before (can you imagine nordstrom doing this?) so it's something to get used to. sometimes i want to go back and give the vendor a few more dollars, a pat on the back and an open invitation to stay at my house if they ever come to california to just not be mad at me anymore ... but i fear they will kick me in the teeth or something if they see me again. good thing i'm leaving town tomorrow. off to shanghai!
eric and johnny leave, as do all of the profs, which means it's just the non-chinese speakers left ... me, cecilia, the two thai girls, and taka. it will be fun negotiating the prices at the market with no native speaker present. you can't even use your hands to hold up fingers since have a totally different way of doing numbers with hands! it's kinda cool though, and it's all on one hand, which makes it handy for holding up item and negotiating price simultaneously! if the number is higher than 10, we just take turns punching numbers into a calculator, clearing them, re-entering them and clearing them in mock disgust and anger.
we visited the ladies market which is just named that way even though it has goods for all. the prices weren't as high as we expected so many purchases were made. we keep trying to save our mojo for china where prices are way cheaper, but it just didn't work so well last night. in fact, we have all bought second pieces of luggage to haul stuff home in.
later, we walkd around the charming park by teh harbor and then hit the night market. taka bought these three sqeezy/slimy toy things that you throw on the ground, they splat, then reform. he got them for $10 HK and we all had a chuckle when three booths down the guy was selling them for $5. taka took off for the booth where he made his purchase to scream injustice and funny thing .... the guy had forgotten english all of a sudden! he did give taka a free extra toy .... but no refund. hee hee.
negotiating in tough. sometimes i go too low and they rip the calculator out of my hand and wave me away in disgust, but that's usually after the winning bid, when they've already snatched the money out of my hand. i've never really made an enemy for purchasing something before (can you imagine nordstrom doing this?) so it's something to get used to. sometimes i want to go back and give the vendor a few more dollars, a pat on the back and an open invitation to stay at my house if they ever come to california to just not be mad at me anymore ... but i fear they will kick me in the teeth or something if they see me again. good thing i'm leaving town tomorrow. off to shanghai!
posted by christine at 6:44 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home