I Give You Best Price

Haha – that makes me laugh just typing it! I heard that plus a lot more today...

Today was so fun – got up and instead of just getting into gym clothes got ready to get on the road to Shanghai! Note, however, that I started off the day SO right with a cream puff, because Curt didn't get to it fast enough, haha! So Lisa came and got me (she drives, which isn’t that common for an expat here) at 8:30 a.m. after she dropped her daughter off at school, and we went back to her neighborhood to grab Jana. Jana and Lisa live in an actual house neighborhood – she jokes that it’s like Wisteria Lane, and it kind of is, from the looks of it!

So Charlie, Jana’s driver, took us into Shanghai, and really we were on a mission just to go to the copy market, so we didn’t go deep into the city or anything. We had fun chatting on the way there – it took us awhile to get there as traffic was a little hairy this morning (maybe 1.5 hours) but it flew by pretty quickly, and then we were outside of this 3-story looking mall! It was huge, and they had *everything* - purses, clothes (Ed Hardy, True Religion, Seven, Diesel, etc.), jewelry, rugs, sunglasses, and everything in between!

We spent all morning wandering around – Lisa is going home this weekend for a few weeks so she had a shopping list of things to get for people, so she was busy negotiating and I was watching her learning the Chinese vocabulary for haggling prices, haha! She’s good, too, and we got some great deals! The above picture is her trying on jeans in the store - forget dressing rooms, people, it's called drape the sheet and have some fun, LOL!

For the most part today I was observing and taking it all in – I don’t really NEED anything so I wasn’t going to go crazy… but I did find a cute Le Sport Sack bag to take with me to the gym, a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses – aviators, I love these, and a pearl necklace that is pretty unique, beautiful, and so cheap! I got all three of those things for $15 USD. Nice!!!! For each of the items they originally started out about 4x’s above what I ended up getting them for – I guess they count on foreigners being tourists, so they take what they can get where they can get it?

When we started to get hungry we ventured out to a place close by called the Blue Frog, which has a little bit of everything – soups, sandwiches, salad, ICED TEA! What?! Oh yes – real iced tea… but instead of sugar packets, they brought out this creamer dish with clear liquid, which I assumed was water. I asked the waitress what it was and she said it was sugar syrup, so I dipped my finger in and wow, it was so sweet and delicious! I poured in a little at a time to get the taste right, but oh my gosh I was in heaven with my iced tea. SO good… sigh! Lunch was great, I had a grilled chicken sandwich, and then we headed back into the copy market (there’s another name for it, but I don’t know what it is) to finish up our shopping. We finished by 2 p.m. and got on the road, and breezed home with no traffic in 45 minutes, so it was great! Here are my purchases - not the best light (the bag is way cuter in person) but you get it...

After the gals dropped me off from the fun outing, I ventured out and ended up going on an 1.5 half walk – it was a nice day today, and I’m trying to spend a lot of time outside since apparently the "nice days" are numbered as it does get very hot here, and the mosquitoes will get unbearable very soon… SO had a nice walk, took in the sights, got home, did the dishes, folded the laundry, and at about that time Curt got home and we went out for Italian at a new place he hadn’t tried yet. I had half of my lasagna, which was actually pretty good, and he had a pizza, which he also enjoyed, so another food winner there! Below are pictures I took while out - all within maybe 2 miles or where we live!

THEN we rushed home because American Idol came on tonight, so I watched that while he did some work, and now I’m writing this! Will probably go to bed soon and read – all in all a great day!