Shopping

One of the great things about living in China is the shopping...
I've experienced many varieties of the shopping here, none like the other.
As I said in a previous post, the western grocery stores are a great thing to have but one cannot depend on them to have the comforts from home we seek.
The first weekend we were here we went to a large electronics store to purchase a cell phone. First of all, parking is a big headache, but can be done. Spots are few and far between and one must pay the lot attendant. The fee is usually about 1 kuai, which equals about 12 cents.
We chose a simple cell phone from a sales clerk at a counter. Each counter is a separate vender. Once we selected the phone, we took a sales slip and went to the cashier to pay, then took the receipt back to the clerk for the phone. She set it up for me then took me across the room to select a phone number. There were about 10 to choose from, I cannot remember how much the number cost, but a number with no 4s costs more. My number has one 4. The reason for this phenomenon is that the word for 4 is "si" and the word for death is also "si" but with a different tone, so many Chinese prefer to avoid this number.
So, then I had to go pay for the phone number, go back to the clerk and finalize the process.

Another weekend, we went to the Lufthansa Center. It is an upscale shopping center basically like a department store except each area is a separate vendor, so one must pay for items from each area separately. Even within each department, there are separate vendors. We bought Jack a spy gear toy, Jed some Legos and Huck a bus and had to pay for each item separately, then go back to retrieve each item. Across from the Lufthansa Center is a flower market. Here one can buy any type of flower arrangement one desires. If you provide a picture, they'll copy it and deliver it to your home at no extra charge. Also in flower market are items such as gift wrap, candles, dishes, turtles, fish and many other things. I bought a rose shaped candle for less than $2 and a sheet of giftwrap for 12 cents. My favorite find is pictured above. I found these cowboy themed plates in an area with lots of different types of dishes. Since we love the West so much and I love to ride and the plates feature 3 cowboys (like our 3 boys) I could not pass on the bargain. I bought 10 place settings, plus a serving bowl, for less than $34.

The past weekend, a friend and I ventured out to Ikea. It's the second largest Ikea in the world. No, I don't know where the largest is. Perhaps it is in Sweden. Anyway, our house has no linen closets and no medicine cabinets so I thought I might be able to find something to store our medicines in at Ikea. I was right, I bought a tall, thin cabinet that stands free. It cost $87. I had it delivered and assembled for less than $15. I also bought wooden hangers: 6 for $1.25 and many other small items.

My friend and I ventured to Ikea in a taxi as neither of us has a car. Getting a taxi is easy, we just phone the customer service desk at the clubhouse of our community and they send a taxi. They are a little like a concierge desk. Getting home from Ikea, or any other place downtown, can be a bit more complicated. I have learned the directions from the freeway, though, and feel pretty confident in my ability to get home. HOWEVER, if a taxi driver refuses to listen to me when I tell him which exit to use, I am completely out of luck. This is what happened on Saturday.

We got into the taxi and told him where we live. We confirmed he knew the general area and told him to take the toll road. Drivers often ask you if you want them to do that b/c if they do, you have to pay the toll. Not a big deal at $1.25. I told him to take exit 6 (liu in Chinese) he repeated "liu" and did the hand signal to indicate "6". We hit the road.

When we got to exit 4, the other exit for our area, he motioned to it, but we reiterated "liu" and he continued on the road. When we neared exit 6, he didn't slow down, so I indicated for him to take the exit. He pointed ahead and kept driving while I tried to tell him to get off the road. SO, we exited the road at exit 7 "qi". Then he wanted to know which way to go. We just put up our hands to show we had no idea so he drove forward. I soon saw he had no idea where he was, so I told him, in my best effort at Chinese, that I could call our clubhouse and they might be able to help him. He nodded, so I dialed and asked for their help. Two phone calls later, we got to the correct main road and we showed him how to get us home.

Had I been alone, I probably would have been a little panicky, but since I had a friend and I figured there was safety in numbers, I kept a level head and only broke a sweat b/c it was so hot in the cab and the fumes were burning my eyes and making me light headed.

Yesterday I went with two other women to an electronics store. I bought an iron, 2 reading lamps to hook to the bunk beds, a 24 inch flat screen multi-system tv and a multi-system dvd player and a set of two chordless phones. Each item had to be paid for separately and the tv had to be delivered because it came from a separate area. Total cost $467. I hope it all works!

Most things are reasonabley well priced here, obviously, but the costs of settling in to a new home still add up. It's something we seem to forget each time we move. This is our 7th family move since Jack was born almost 8 years ago.