Yesterday I went on a really fun adventure with my language partner to an outlet mall on the East side of China. The place was PACKED with people and fake clothing. In my Chinese 101 class at UVA the first thing we had learned how to say was: "give me a discount" which is probably the most useful Chinese phrase. The merchant will quote you a price, say... 160 kuai (still only 20 bucks) for a fake polo shirt. In response, the buyer might offer 35 (around 4 bucks). On average I paid 50 kuai each for the 3 polo shirts I ended up buying. I would stand there dumbfounded as my language partner explained to the seller how awful the stitching was, and then we would coordinate fake "walk aways" as we tried to give the seller the impression that we didn't want to buy the shirt anymore. Once or twice I amazed the vendors with my brilliant Chinese (yeah right) and said "gei wo pianyi yidianr" or literally "give me a little cheap". All in all it was a really fun day.
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on July 17, 2005 11:00 PM.
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:) Sounds like fun!
Joe is cutting short his own vacation at the beach so I can leave Saint at his place again when I go to Arizona. I can't tell you how grateful I am.
I'm flying to Arizona on Aug 6 and flying back on Aug 15. I think I'll take the laptop with me if I can get the ipass software working with dialup--it seems to be messed up.
Did you and your roommate get moved to another building?
love, mom
nah we're still in the same room, trying to get them to atleast bring in another desk... hey post a picture of the pup i miss him ^^
also, i ordered a laptop computer from Dell China that should be getting here soon. i realized how much nicer it'll be next year when i don't have to lug around that huge desktop whenever i come home for the weekend or holidays.
anyways, on august 1st joe has to move all of our stuff from our storage apartment to our new one and i was wondering if you could buy him a present for me or something... since it's gonna be a huge pain. maybe a nice flask? ^^
anyways, talk to you later!
-love, mike
A nice flask? Is this a serious suggestion? lol. If it's not, got any other suggestions?
Joe said the sofa legs are in the Rodeo. I'll look for them--maybe I could drive over to his place and give them to him.
I'm sorry to hear that the room situation has been such a bummer. At least it sounds like you and your roommate are getting along--that's something.
I'm still thinking about getting a wireless router for home. A week or so ago I was having the frustrating problems with Verizon again, so I started up the online support program and it downloaded a massive upgrade file. Since then the connection seems much more stable. Maybe it's my imagination.
keep posting :)
love, mom