Day 16 - Girls Day Out
Apr. 23rd, 2008 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoToday we began the traditional preparations for our eventual return to the US - that is, buying presents for all the thousand and one people back home. Not to mention picking up all the stuff that friends/distant relatives are asking us to carry to the US for them.
For gifts, the obvious choice would be the Olympic mascots since this year is Olympics year. The official stuff comes from the post office, so I went there with my aunt early this morning to take a look at the prices. They range from about 22 RMB for a key/cellphone chain to 58 RMB for a fan. My aunt said there were pairs of Olympics chopsticks that were very pretty and for 20-something RMB, but those apparently were too popular and were already sold out.
Then, we went out shopping for real, with pretty much the entire household of women sans my grandma - there was me, my younger cousin, my mom, and my aunts (of my two cousins). Estrogen... level... skyrocketing...
Our first stop was Fuzi Miao (夫子庙), which is pretty much the grand the flea market of Nanjing, where you will find a lot of stuff for cheap (and/or fake :P).
Our first stop was a walk-by kidnapping from a teahouse. They had a bunch of girls outside advertising various teas. My mom needed to buy some kind of tea that my dad had told her to get him, so while she was busy finding those, the rest of us tried the various teas they pushed on us. I located the section for chrysanthemum tea - same as that I had when I was still rooming with cashew, so I bought a bag for 24 RMB. As I was leaving the place, they also forced on me a bag of jasmine tea for 10 RMB... and I am just an easy mark I guess. =_=
Then we examined several souvenier shops for (non-official) Olympics stuff, and did end up buying a bunch of keychain stuff to hand out in bulk to more generic contacts (like more distant co-workers). Mom bought four ceramic turtles for her male colleagues, against the rest of our advice that those guys better not know what "乌龟王八" means. ^^;
After picking up a few more pieces of souveniers, we drove over to a mall building for clothing. In general, the prices are much lower than those in Shanghai, but there also seems to be more coats and jackets than there were normal shirts and inner clothing for sale (which was I was more interested in). But anyway, with so many females present, I think we spent more time having people trying stuff on and then arguing about how stuff looks on who than actually buying stuff. *cough* I did end up with one pair of pants, one semi-coat, and one shirt.
It was near dinner time when we managed to make it home. My feet hurt like hell, but at least I got most of my presents done. Now I just need to buy some of the official Olympics stuff from the post office tomorrow for the closer colleagues I have at work (like the managers *cough*).
For gifts, the obvious choice would be the Olympic mascots since this year is Olympics year. The official stuff comes from the post office, so I went there with my aunt early this morning to take a look at the prices. They range from about 22 RMB for a key/cellphone chain to 58 RMB for a fan. My aunt said there were pairs of Olympics chopsticks that were very pretty and for 20-something RMB, but those apparently were too popular and were already sold out.
Then, we went out shopping for real, with pretty much the entire household of women sans my grandma - there was me, my younger cousin, my mom, and my aunts (of my two cousins). Estrogen... level... skyrocketing...
Our first stop was Fuzi Miao (夫子庙), which is pretty much the grand the flea market of Nanjing, where you will find a lot of stuff for cheap (and/or fake :P).
Our first stop was a walk-by kidnapping from a teahouse. They had a bunch of girls outside advertising various teas. My mom needed to buy some kind of tea that my dad had told her to get him, so while she was busy finding those, the rest of us tried the various teas they pushed on us. I located the section for chrysanthemum tea - same as that I had when I was still rooming with cashew, so I bought a bag for 24 RMB. As I was leaving the place, they also forced on me a bag of jasmine tea for 10 RMB... and I am just an easy mark I guess. =_=
Then we examined several souvenier shops for (non-official) Olympics stuff, and did end up buying a bunch of keychain stuff to hand out in bulk to more generic contacts (like more distant co-workers). Mom bought four ceramic turtles for her male colleagues, against the rest of our advice that those guys better not know what "乌龟王八" means. ^^;
After picking up a few more pieces of souveniers, we drove over to a mall building for clothing. In general, the prices are much lower than those in Shanghai, but there also seems to be more coats and jackets than there were normal shirts and inner clothing for sale (which was I was more interested in). But anyway, with so many females present, I think we spent more time having people trying stuff on and then arguing about how stuff looks on who than actually buying stuff. *cough* I did end up with one pair of pants, one semi-coat, and one shirt.
It was near dinner time when we managed to make it home. My feet hurt like hell, but at least I got most of my presents done. Now I just need to buy some of the official Olympics stuff from the post office tomorrow for the closer colleagues I have at work (like the managers *cough*).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-25 06:36 am (UTC)What did you get me?XD I kid.Oooh, Olympic stuff. I'd say yay, but then I remembered that the Olympics design team was apparently drunk when they made the mascots. (I mean, dear god, was that fugly or what?)
But yay for the tea tho'. XD