Day 4 - Some Shopping

Today we visited the Pearl Market to do some all important shopping. It is called the Pearl Market because it is where you can find lots of pearl vendors, but there is also other types of jewellery (jade) and other goods (clothing, shoes, belts, watches, etc...). The market covered five floors in a large rectangular shaped building. It was very clean and bright and the goods on each floor seemed to get progressively more expensive as you make your way up the building (the top floor featured some very intricate jade carvings for 180,000 Yuan [$20,000] much too expensive for us).

The lower floors featured more reasonably priced goods, although prices are usually not marked or if they are, the price is considerably higher than what you should pay. China is the land of bargaining, and you have to haggle - it's expected. Unfortunately, we're not that good at the bargaining process, but we're learning quickly. The salespeople aren't as aggressive as we had expected (apparently they are worse at the silk market), but it was not unusual to have them grab your arm to entreat you to buy from them. We lost track of the number of times we were told that they would make "a special price for you" because "you are my first customer" or "you are my Canadian friend". It is difficult to bargain with products like pearls because we are not savvy enough to recognize good quality pearls from lesser quality pearls. However, we managed to buy a few things at prices which seemed to be a bargain for us.

We've attached a picture of the inside of the market. As you can see, it is set up like a department store with permanent stalls arranged around each floor. There was access to the rooftop of the market and that is the pagoda style structure you see in one of the pictures. From the rooftop, we took a picture of the street so you can see the traffic. Unfortunately it is still so overcast and hazy that you can't really see much of the city.

After the pearl market, we went next door where they had a toy market (again filled with vendors selling all manner of toys from Barbies to cars to Playstations). You name it, they likely have it.

We started getting hungry, so we made our way back to the hotel and stopped at a western style restaurant to satisfy a craving (club sandwiches and fries). We were all pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel where we met up with some of the other families that had arrived today. Stephanie played with Liam while we packed up our stuff for tomorrow's flight to Guangzhou.

At 5:00, we met our guide and all of the families went out for dinner. It was an early night as we are still very tired and want to be well rested for tomorrow's busy travel day.

Well that's all for now. Can't believe that we'll see Sophie in two days!!!!

Chris, Caroline & Stephanie