seriously shady shopping

My weekend was really nice. Friday night i managed to have my first greek salad since I've been in China, and although the feta cheese was rather salty, it wasn't half bad. Better than no greek salad at all.

Saturday was spent in bed with a headache and on the phone (webcam) for the better part of the day. I got to talk to Rebecca for a few hours for the first time in 4 months. How weird is that. Saturday night we went to a lovely Christmas party thrown by one of our collegues at his new apartment (off campus), ate a lot of delicious home-made sushi and soup and chicken, enjoyed the beautiful (but chilly) view from the balcony, and had some egg nog. Who doesn't love a good Christmas party?

But Sunday is where it got really interesting. I knew I needed to go shopping for Christmas presents for a few people, and decided to brave the fake market in Pudong. This huge market, where they sell fake designer things, used to be on this side of the river, in the French Concession. However, as real estate prices are skyrocketing in Shanghai, the government decided that the property was far too valuable to house the fake market, and in June of this year, the market closed. It moved to a large area (and i mean huge) inside the metro stop for the Science and Technology museum in Pudong.

So I got up on Sunday, bundled up (the weather has, finally, turned colder. On Sunday it was in the 30s, and today I finally noticed that the leaves have fallen off of the trees), and headed to the metro. I don't even know how long it took to get to the market, but it seemed to take forever. I guess I'm not really used to riding the metro, because cabs are so cheap here. But I obviously wasn't going to take a $12 cab ride by myself to Pudong, so I spent 5 kuai (like...65 cents) to ride the metro there. If you know me, you know how much I love going to Chinatown in New York City every time I'm there just to look at/purchase some fake bags. Well, this was like that, but multiplied by a million. Everywhere I looked, there were fake coach, prada, gucci, louis vuitton, longchamps, chloe, kate spade, etc bags. Fake North Face jackets. Fake Tiffany jewelry. I'd seen the fake tiffany stuff in New York before, but here they even sell it to you with the turqouise leather pouch. I was, obviously, in heaven.

So I shopped around for a while, purchased some things, and walked into this one stall. A salesgirl came up to me and asked me if I wanted to see the Prada and Gucci things in the back. The fact that I didn't have anywhere to be, coupled with my adoration for Prada bags, made me accept her offer. I'd done this before in NYC, but when I did it there I had several friends with me. Here I was, all alone all the way in Pudong, watching this woman open a false door that looked to the unsuspecting eye like a bookshelf full of purses. She pushed the false door open, and assured me "Just me, no one else, no worry." Well, I hadn't been worried before, but I certainly became worried when she kept repeating to me 'be careful' and 'just me' as we zig-zagged through a makeshift hallway. I had to climb over a lot of stuff, and we finally turned a corner and saw what was at the end: a ladder. What?

She was already climbing up the ladder, telling me 'it's ok, just me, be careful' and reaching her hands down to help me climb up the ladder. I'm sorry, what? I just wanted to see some good fake Prada purses and now somehow this woman has me climbing up a wooden ladder, struggling not to drop my bags full of presents. When I got to the top, I saw what we had come for: a room in this weird attic that was maybe the size of our family room at home, probably a little smaller. There were purses everywhere. Coach, Louis Vuitton (yuck), Prada, Gucci, Fendi, Chanel...it was nuts. And they weren't the crappy ones that they had downstairs, either. These were GOOD. I perused the room for a while, asking the salesgirl to help me find a small black purse. Her definition of 'small' was definitely not the same as mine, but whatever. She kept trying to get me to buy a million different purses for my 'mama' "Because it's merry christmas. very nice for mama. it's merry christmas!" I was like "yeah but i'm not going home for Christmas!"

Finally she picked out a black prada bag that was remarkably similar to the red one that i was wearing (purchased in NYC for $18 in february of 2005, yes i know it's weird that I can remember that). She told me 'red one very dirty, this one very nice. very good for shopping.' And honestly, she was right. He haggled over a price for that and a wallet, she told me several times how beautiful I am, what a nice bag it was, and I told her the truth...by that point i didn't have much money with me. So I'm sure I still overpaid, but when I took the new black Prada out today to transfer my stufff, I opened it up and inspected it. Not only is there another Prada tag thing on the inside, but even the lining says "Prada" on it. And, it's a practical bag. For $12, not a bad purchase.

Climbing down the ladder was harder than climbing up...it was hard to say goodbye to all those beautiful purses, but I was looking forward to leaving shady-central.

Sometimes I get myself into the weirdest situations.