A massive market

Yesterday, my neighbor took me to a market where I experienced complete sense overload. It was so overstimulating, at first I couldn't focus enough to see things and decide to make a purchase. In the end, though, I managed.

Christmas is making its way into China. The market was FULL of holiday deorations. I bought LED blue and white lights for 4.50 per 20 meter strand. I bought gift bags, non holiday themed. The small ones were 24 cents per bag, whle the larger ones were 36 cents each, I think. I bought candles that say Happy Birthday, some in English and some in Chinese. I bought a cell phone holder that fits on a belt, for Tom. It cost 8 kuai. I also got packing tape, as there was a business supply floor.

One weird phenomenon in a market such as this one is that it's filled with vendors selling similar or same items and each might have different prices. So, for instance, I bought a set of candles for 10 kuai and then moved down the way and decided I needed more and they were 8 kuai. It may not seem like a big difference, only 24 cents, but to a local, it's a lot and we only saw one other westerner in the several hours we were there.

The place was JAMMED with people. Each floor, of the 5 or 6 floors had different types of items. The basement had lights, the first floor had decorations of all sorts, one floor was leather goods, one was underwear and socks. Incredible. Thousands of socks under one roof. My neighbor was looking for a specific undershirt for his wife but it's a summer item so they don't stock it now. They eventually told him that if he wanted 10 million, they'd get them for him. They were totally serious. The Chinese are big on layering clothing. They wear thick long underwear under their clothes in the winter, so this was a big item in the underwear floor. I must say, the long underwear makes a BIG difference. Tuesday I wore some on our market expedition and I wasn't cold at all in 20 degree weather. It was great, and that was with my 25 year old pink cotton ones. So, yesterday I bought some good Chinese ones and Friday I will go where my ayi told me to go to get them for the boys.

We also had lunch at the market. They have a food court on the upper level. It's full of small restaraunts, like in a US food court but it's all Chinse food, of course. You select from the dishes displayed and pay a price like: 2 meat dishes and 1 vegetable dish plus rice or 3 and 2 or whatever. The container is about 6 inches by 4 inches by 2 inches, and they just pile each dish on top of the other as you select it and they give you the same size container full of rice and the cost for 3 dishes was 5 kuai, about 63 cents. That's how we know it's truly a local place.

Of course they also had the squatty potties and I did take a picture, due to popular demand. I will post it tomorrow.

Finally, a word abuot parking. We parked on the street about half a mile from the market and a parking attendent came to the car and asked how long we would be. We told him about 2 hours, so we were charged 4 kuai. It turned out to be quite a bit longer and we speculated what would happend when we returned to the car. When we opened the doors, the man quickly returned and while laughing and smiling talked about the fact that it was much longer than we'd said and we owed another 4 kuai. No worries, though, we paid and off we went. I guess it's a better method that the meter b/c they get their money and we don't get towed!