Un-Crappy

Just thought that I would let you all know that I didn't have a sucky China day today. Today I went shopping all by my lonesome. My goal was to bring home a new ipod shuffle. So off I went! After thoroughly confusing the taxi driver and a 40 minute traffic jam, I arrived at my destination.

I enter the mall and am immediately accosted by people with flyers. Eventually I make my around to the ipod section. So, I communicate with the shop assistant that I am interested and want to see the small ipod shuffle in blue in Chinese. Also asked if there was an English book or CD, which there was none. Everything was going well until the end. She was saying something that I just couldn't figure out something about clear and blue. WHAT?!?! So, in a panic I call one of my recording friends to translate a little for me. He finally told me he thinks this has to do with a rubber cover that the no longer have in blue, but she thought that the clear cover was far superior anyhow. So, with the rubber cover now settled we started to joke around with the price. It just so happened that a Chinese woman was buying one at the same time, so she suggested that we go together and try to get the price down for two. Mission accomplished - we got the lowest price in the receipt book (which I flipped through while they got our packages together - nosy, nosy).

After my quest was finished, I was feeling pretty good and decided to do a little shopping around the Carrefore complex (CFC). The mall that connects to the CFC is quite a winding maze! When I went there earlier in the year, I completely got lost and could not find my way back to where I needed to go. But anyhow, this time I walked around the outside shops for a little bit and picked up a few things. Then I wandered into one of the entrances to the labyrinth of a mall. Low and behold, I found myself smack dab in the middle of a Chinese goth-ish art fair! It was awesome! Strange patch worked animals with grotesque features, anime fairy paintings, LOTS of art with safety pins, and self-loathing declarations in mangled English scrawled with fine line pen, complete with ink blobs. Ahhh...gotta love the goths.

So, I walked around looking at the interesting wares and wound up in the rotunda which was decked out with rainbow flags. I was soooo hoping that it was for a GLBT event, but thought that would be a misplaced hope here in China, but I was pleasantly surprised - it WAS for not one, but two GLBT non-profit organizations in China. I talked with some of the members of the Information Clearinghouse for Chinese Gays and Lesbians. They were so much fun and friendly! They just had such a good energy about them, I just wanted to help them out. I wound up giving them a nice donation and received 4 totally rad shirts. Hopefully I will be able to work with them a little bit before I go back to the United States.

Anyhow, after that, I wandered back to the CFC and decided to try to find some sunglasses as I had left mine on a bus some time ago. I went to one of the glasses shops that was super crowded (ugh). But had fun! What you say? You had fun in a filled to capacity and then some store? Yup I did. I was in the back with a bunch of women around my age. We sent in one of the really little women into the mob to grab as many glasses as she could manage. When she got back we were all picking through them not only for ourselves, but for each other. In the end, we all were helping to pick the "right" sunglasses for each women. I think I was there for about an hour having fun in a hot crowded store. After the sunglasses were chosen and purchased, I got my self a treat (caramel macchiato) and found out that they will be putting in a DQ/Orange Julius (score!)

Then the true test to a good day...to wrangle me a cab! I waited and waited but no cabs. Cabs would come and there would be the Chinese cab scramble and then I was left at the curb. My solution? Uh...cross the street! It was amazingly easy to catch a cab by just crossing the street! So, all my packages in one hand and a hot coffee in the other, I was whisked back to the good ol' east gate. Nice to have an un-crappy day once in a while.