Tag Archives: shopping

The BIG Bargain

YAY!!! So listen… Or read… You know what I mean!!

 

I got a chance to go to the Lady’s Market in Mong Kok, Hong Kong.  It was amazing! I loved the atmosphere and the thrill of bargaining.  I try to ignore the scorching heat sickle of an area because the trip and experience is worth it!! There are so many things I wanted to buy!  I have to spend wisely of course because it is better to save money.  BUT that’s the beauty of it!!  You get what you want, and it is because you have more power over what is leaving your pockets!! 

 

What is very ironic is that I thought about myself last looking at everything they are ready to sell.  My mother quickly came to mind, as well as my brother, sister,  and boyfriend Jason.  That is all I wanted to buy for.  So far I got two silk Chinese dresses for my mother.  Im looking to get her pearls, and shoes to match.  They have a lot of counterfeit things, but if you don’t mind or would like nameless brands to be safe, you will be just fine.  There are a couple other gifts I am planning on getting, but I don’t want my family to read this blog and find out!!! J Yes I already told my mom about the Chinese silk dress, so it is okay! LOL

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Shopping is so exciting, but at a bargain – it is every woman’s dream!  For instance, one of the silk dresses cost $180 HK dollars ($23 US dollars).  I bargained my way down to get two of them for around the same price ($180).  I shopped for a purse today, and they didn’t have the one I wanted.  The woman offered me the bag for $360 HK dollars ($46 US dollars) for being “pretty” because it was initially $680 HK dollars – about $87 US (sweet talking doesn’t work when it comes to money, especially with a bad pitch).  Long story short – walking away does something to them, which makes them lower the price.  Don’t let them bully you or make you get less of what you want!  It is your money and always go with YOUR price.  I got my bag with the help of my good friend Shanttel for $120 HK dollars!!! That’s about $ 15 US dollars.  I already put my stuff in it to wear it tomorrow… LOL 

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Location: Lady's Market, Tung Choi Street, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Bargaining Blues

 After our stay in Napa Village, the group went to a small village called Lijiang.  Its famous for its old city, which is decked out with traditional Chinese sceneries and architecture.  The buildings were quaint and had curved roofs, little streams flowing underneath the stone brick walkways, bridges, and waterwheels.  It was… cute.  There were also a lot of touristy places to buy touristy souvenirs.  This is where I did a lot of “bargaining”.  I put in quotes because it’s debatable if I actually ended up getting the best possible price. 

Since most of the items I purchased were gifts I shall be stingy with the details.  Here are the things I bought:

3x animal souvenirs

4x decoration type souvenirs

1x slightly larger decoration type souvenir

3x expensive jade thingies

1x festive looking container

Ok, in my defense, Lijiang was a super touristy place so the price of goods are exponentially higher than they should be.  In my experience, touristy places like this are no good for buying things.  The reason why I bought multiple of most items was because I figured since it was gifts, it wouldn’t hurt to have extras and buying more than one would give me leverage to demand a lower price.

First the animals.  I thought they were cool looking and pretty unique.  They came in several sizes.  Small, which was about the size of a half dollar, the mediums were about the size of small computer mouse, the large was about the size of a baseball and the extra large was freaking huge.  Not wanting to be too conspicuous, but at the same time wanting to make sure my friends don’t feel shafted, I went for the medium.  The lady told me that each one was 25 RMB each.  I easily brought it down to 3 for 50 RMB, but according to my friends, I got ripped off pretty bad.  I could’ve/should’ve gotten them for 10 RMB each.  I hate my life.

Next I bought decoration type things.  They were pretty cheap, and looked pretty cool.  3 for 10 RMB.  However!  I tried to haggled it down, or get another one for marginally cheaper.  All I could do was 4 for 12 RMB, which in my opinion is total bullcrap.  But!  Its only 12 RMB, so I can live with that.  And then!  While I was walking down another alley, I saw identical items in a different stall, but this time it was 4 for 10 RMB!  I hate my life.

Same for all the other stuff.  It was astronomically expensive; I got it down to a semi-reasonable price, but then realize that it’s still severely overpriced.  I have a shopping problem.  I confess it.  Someone save me.  The fact that I justify relatively expensive goods with “Oh, but its actually not that expensive when you convert it to US prices” might be pretty bad too.  Hopefully I won’t be too broke poor when I come back.  


Location: Lijiang, China

Don’t call it a tube, you’ll sound far too American.

IES Dorm Room

Here’s a picture of our dorm room (like I promised)!

Hey everyone! Sorry it’s been so long since the last blog – this past week and a half has been packed full in an attempt to prepare for the start of classes and adapt to life in London. Since it’s been so long and I have so much to blog, I’m making it into 2 parts!

Last Tuesday morning we had a free day so some of us decided to wake up and meet downstairs around 10am to journey over to City University. Our plan for the day was to find our way around the campus, go to a 99 pence store (comparable to a dollar store – “pence” is their change), and find the closest ASDA (Wal-Mart). The weather that morning was actually nice; it began as partly sunny. However, I knew that I was in London and I took my umbrella with me anyway. We took the underground and got off right near City University. When we arrived, we got our bearings and headed to the University; it only took us about 5 minutes to walk to the campus. When we got there, my initial thought was “it’s a lot smaller then Penn State”!Social Sciences Building We walked around the small(er) campus and to the back side of the buildings where we entered the student building. When we got inside, there we’re very pleasant receptionists sitting there so we decided to ask them where the closest 99p store is. It turns out that it is located in the beginning of a shopping market right by the underground station. The market had a lot of great shops and stands with great prices! We took a walk to the end of the market and then finally found the store. We were able to buy a lot of necessary things in there; I ended up getting most of my toiletries and soaps there for only 12 pounds! From there, we found a cute panini caf� that had a lot of options at a very low price. The panini’s were really good! We got back on the underground and headed for (what we thought) was the right direction to ASDA. We found out after arriving that we went in the wrong direction. I was perfectly fine with that – it’s all part of the adventure! We hopped right back on the underground and went in the right direction. We arrived at our destination after about a 45 minute underground ride. We then had to get a bus to take us the remaining distance (this was one of the first times I was on a double-decker bus). Once we got to Clapham Junction (location of ASDA) we were ecstatic to finally be there! As we were walking up the hill to get to ASDA, I spotted a Whole Foods!! I was so happy! I didn’t go in that day because I wanted to see what ASDA offered so we walked to ASDA and spent about 2 hours in there. This store is not even comparable to Wal-Mart back home; it is amazing! There are so many organic brands there; ASDA even has their own organic brand which makes buying organic much cheaper. I was in heaven. I picked up most of the staple items I needed and after a long while spent roaming through the store and a long time in line, I was finally at the register. I was scared to see how much I was going to be spending; to my surprise, I spent under 40 pounds! The prices were great; even though it is much more expensive when converting to dollars. Collectively, we had so many bags to carry back to the bus stop. It was incredibly entertaining and I’m sure hilarious to watch but it was quite challenging. Nonetheless, we arrived to the bus stop and were able to get off at the stop right in front of our dorm building. Later that night, a few of the girls wanted to go to a pub for a light meal and some drinks. I’m not a fan of beer or hard liquor so I decided to have a rose wine. It was fun just hanging out and talking with the girls and getting to know everyone. Only one other person that came out was from PSU, one of the girls is from Wagner and another is from a small school in Minnesota.  I was pleased that I was at least meeting people from somewhere other than Penn State.

Wednesday morning, we had to get to City University at 10am for our first day of orientation so we left the dorms around 8:50. My commute takes about a total of 45 minutes, but I am the type of person who needs to get to my classes early so I usually leave an hour and 15 minutes before I have to be on campus. When we arrived at City, we realized that we had 10 minutes to get to the room and no idea where it was! We ended up finding our way, but we were about 5 minutes late. The orientation lasted from 10am-4pm (16:00) and then at 4pm, we met for a Cheese and Wine welcome social. That was really fun because we got to meet other people in our program that were living at the University dorms.  When we got back, I had to put together my timetables for my classes. Timetables are pretty much equivalent to schedules at home. There is one huge difference here; they don’t make you schedule the class time you want to attend, just the class name. I thought that was pretty odd; however, I was reminded that attendance for European students is very unimportant and class time usually doesn’t mean much to them. Thursday was a tough day for me; I celebrate Russian Christmas on January 7th and Thursday was my Christmas Eve. This year was the first time I have ever been away from my family for Christmas. Thankfully, our meetings at City were mainly about our academics at the school and didn’t take too long. That night I was able to come home and skype my whole family; it still boggles my mind that I can video skype my family internationally (with no fee)!!  Later on that night a few of us were sitting around trying to figure out what we could do so we took the bus to a place called Piccadilly Circus for a while and walked around. This area is more or less a smaller version of Times Square in New York City. It was pretty cool to see all of the nightlife and shops around there. There was also this really cool frozen yogurt place called Snog’s.Snogs Ceiling It was so cute; the ceiling changed colors and it was very trendy. We didn’t walk around for long because it was close to midnight on a Thursday so most places were getting ready to close. Friday morning, I found where a Russian Orthodox Church that my uncle recommended was located. I went to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition and All Saints which was only about a 15 minute bus ride/walk away from my dorms. I had a bit of trouble getting to there because I got lost when I started walking but I eventually made it to church (and only 5 minutes late).  I like to think that I have a pretty good sense of direction but I was still very happy when I found it. Russian Orthodox Church It was a beautiful church and a familiar service but there were so many people there! The church itself is pretty small so it was a tight squeeze.  It was very calming to be in a familiar setting for Christmas morning; although, I was really upset that I was away from my family. This was a weird feeling for me because it was the first time ever that I was truly homesick. By the end of the service I was calmed down and confident that I was alright; this is all part of the experience. After the service, I traveled back to the dorms and met the girls downstairs. We decided we were going to spend the day at Harrods, Top Shop, Zara, and H&M. Harrods Department StoreHarrods was unbelievable! The size of this department store was enormous (an entire block!!!) and it included every single designer you could think of, cars, a grocery store, a bakery, a restaurant, a (Harrods) gift shop, and a cafeteria. I was in awe! We left there after about 2 hours and went to Zara, Top Shop, and H&M. We then left our shopping extravaganza and journeyed home in the pouring rain. It was already dark when we were heading back but it was before 5pm (17:00).

This week really threw me right into life in another country. I was thinking about it and one of the reasons I like traveling so much is because I get to be somewhere that is different from what I’m used to.  Although London is probably the closest thing to an American city, it is definitely still a change from home. British products are different, people are different, different words are used, and so on and so forth.  Like I said, I love that about traveling to new places. Something that is going to take me a while to get used to is military time. If you noticed, throughout my blog I converted the afternoon to military time in parenthesis because that’s how they tell time (I probably missed a few spots in my blog). Hopefully, within the next week or so I’ll be using military time too. Also, everyday life and college life here is going to take some getting used to. So far, London has been very good to me and I love living here!

(The continuation blog should be posted tonight) 🙂


Location: Chelsea, London, England

Getting to, Arriving at, and Surviving the first day in the UK

Packing: I may have overpacked. I tried not to, I swear. I discarded pairs of heels, and tank tops, and I only brought one towel. But It’s hard not to when you look at the conversion rates. Did I really want to spend 40 pounds on my conditioner instead of $28 (don’t check my math), or 70 pounds on school supplies when over the last 3 years of college I’ve accumulated enough junk that I can take for free.  So, all you gals thinking you’re going to show up in fall with one suitcase, you’re wrong. Once you pack the peacoat and first pair of saddle boots, you’ll see just how small that suitcase is…oh and remember, under 50 lbs, please. (But on the brighter side, if you do have to leave basics behind, I passed an H&M and a “TK Maxx”–yes, K–in Kensington, London.)

Traveling: Getting here wasn’t all that bad. Taking off at sunset and arriving at sunrise can really mess with you though. But the hard part comes when you get off at the airport. Since I wasn’t heading in straight to school (and I had no hotel reservations yet) my mom and I “winged it”. So after attempting to the get a bus ticket to a place the bus doesn’t go, we were directed ‘underground’. Surprising the bus is typically cheaper, but the underground is far more accessible. So we arrive in South Kensington, packs on our back, with maybe an hour of sleep from the plane ride, and wanting to shower, and we had no reservations anywhere. We stopped at an internet caf� (don’t be fooled, there are cheap ones out there on every corner) looked at some local hotels and there prices, and since we had no phone yet we thought we’d just show up and ask if they had rooms (the internet said they did). Apparently this is blasphemous. “You mean you don’t already have a reservation,” he says in a nasally annoying French accent. Obviously not buckoo or we wouldn’t be asking about your availability. And apparently some of this “cute little places” don’t have the computers for booking. So after they jacked the price up and we widdled in back down, it came back to the fact that they sucked and we walked out, to which the other French concierge say, “good luck finding a place elsewhere” in a French tone you thought was only in cartoons.  Eventually found a place, still paid too much, but a lesson was learned: buy ahead of time and BUY ONLINE! Buying on line can save you 30-50 pounds… serious American dollars.


Location: London, UK