try on trench coat - asking price 260 yuan (~45 dollars) - its pretty nice but not 45 dollars nice

 

mother in law -100 yuan

 

no reply even ....

 

walk around to another store - alittle hipper Queen St style store with a very similar coat

 

try on trench coat - asking price 360 yuan

 

mother in law - 100 yuan

 

laughter

 

"the walk away"

 

some shouting back and forth

 

E - do you want it for 100 yuan ?

 

blog - let me think it over ....

 

walk to another store

 

same trench coat as the first store - asking price 260 yuan

 

mother in law - 130 yuan

 

merchant - sure

 

blog - what ! the last store accepted 100 yuan ! 

 

E - no no, they were yelling back they would take 30 yuan off the 360 yuan price

 

blog - Lost in Translation

 

 $$$ - Ralph Lauren trench coat  $ Diesel Trenchcoat -  100 Yuan trench coat pic not available

 

 

So we didn't get seats together on the way back to Toronto - 14 hours.  So I ask the guy next to me if he could switch with my partner . No ! Me - alittle upset.  He was sitting in the middle with two strangers. So the window guy who was Canadian, offered and then this freakin guy in the middle seat refused to move !

 

Yes, so it was me in the aisle, some stranger in the middle who removed to move and E in the window !

 

Yes, you read this right on 14 hour flight !

 

I lose it. Tip - don't lose it on an airplane. Then the guy has the audadity to ask if we will switch with his wife so they can seat together and we sit apart !

 

I am losing it again. Then i just talk over this this middle seat guy for the next 30 minutes. He takes a nap for 30 mins, E goes to washroom and he moves over to the window seat finally. What an idiot.

 

Classic Prisoner's dilema - if he wasn't such a jackass and he would of been able to sit with his wife in the beginning rather than sitting in between two married people.

 

 

China has some absolutely awful clothing .... awful in terms of appearance, style and quality ....

 

Went to the flea market today ... finally found things I can afford. There must of been about a couple of thousand merchants. There are actual stores or brands that imitate International Brands but b/c they are stores similar to the Gap they can't directly call themselves Giorgio Armani or Zegna, etc. So we actually went into a "George Annie" store with the Armani logo. It was way too funny to see all these pretty large chinese companies have purposely mispelled names but this aren't one offs, these are the Old Navys of the world. Of course, they have the actual correct spelling named ones too but these aren't at flagship "George Annie" stores.

 

They say Milan is the fashion mecca of the world, well this would be the exact opposite.

 

I still ended up with a new trenchcoat which was last year's fashion item.

 

  Chinese blog.

 

  Milan blog.

 

Mother in-law keeps buying me underwear ....I have no idea why .. anyways, she goes to the store with an actual pair of my underwear.

 

Merchant - hey, I sell that brand but mine are much better quality and not fake. In reference to the Calvin Klein boxers she brought with her.

 

Mother in law - no, I don't want this ones. This is just a sample for sizing and these are real. (shows tags)

 

Merchant - never seen real Calvin Klein boxers in all these years despite selling them for decades ...

 

The best undergarments for men is Jockey boxers. They last the longest and have the best elasticity.

 

surprisely, a dinner reception costs the same in shanghai as toronto

 

ouch

 

surprisely, the wedding gifts which came in the form of a red enveloped stuffed with money actually covered the entire cost of the reception which made no mathematical sense since chinese wages are about 10% of Canadian wages ..

 

in shanghai ...

 

- corn juice is served at most high end restaurants, it tastes like corn juice is all i can say....

- you can use your cell phone in the subway

- 25% of all retail stores are "wedding photo album" stores seriously - there are huge stores in malls and on all major retailing strips that  is basically just a table with a computer and wedding dresses that sell you photo albums .. at first i thought it was a wedding dress store but its actually a wedding photo album store

 

to put the in perspective, go into a mall in america and every ambercrombie, gap, banana, american eagle, etc is a wedding album store

 

never eat subway while out of North America ...

 

there aren't any in shanghai but i thought i throw it out there ...

 

kfc is ridiculously popular over here ... its the hot spot for couples and is considered luxurious food here. its basically the same as Canadian KFC except you don't seen tons of skinny girls in it ....

 

i really can't believe the prices over here ... its exactly the opposite of what you think - so I did some window shopping . Went into this trendy men's store and it had alot of high end replica merchadise . The clothes were indistinguishable for the originals, some factories produce 11,000 shirts when asked to produced 10,000 phenomenon.

 

anyways, i saw this semi-nice replica wallet i was going to get my friend since he lost his wallet recently but they were asking 485 yuan/rmb for it (about 85 dollars) ... that was almost list price for a real one. wtf ! i thought i was being generous to get it for maybe five bucks.

 

then today i hit the flea market ... and they were asking 360 yuan for a wallet (70 dollars!) on the frickin street ! they wouldn't even run after you when you walked away.  the world is going insane ...

 

then i asked another flea market merchant about a watch, she wanted 200 yuan for it (40 real dollars!) the fake chornograph watches usually have three chronographs that are the date instead of the actual stop watch since this is much harder to replicate ...

my blog can't afford anything in china

 

 

 

walking the streets of shanghai is like playing that 1980s videogame frogger - where you maneouvre the frog around oncoming traffic

 

its crazily expensive here for everything - clothes, food, anything ... i went to the big box superstyle store and every item i was thinking this is pretty expensive  .... when you factor in people's wages its wedding inflated prices

 

grandma - here is your birthday gift for next year since i won't see u

 

granddaughter - thanks !

 

blog - no need, here is its back, thank you

 

( you shouldn't be accepting gifts from your grandma)

 

granddaughter - thanks so much

 

blog later opens up the red envelope and its more than what he gets on his own birthday from his parents.

 

shameful.

 

 

 

 

so i'm on this bus in shanghai and on the tv news*(they have tvs on the buses) - they have matchmaker event which consists of basically thousands of people in a gymanasium and the girls walk by in line pass hundreds/thousands of guys and everyone has a number and then at the end, you pick what numbers you like and they give you their cell number and you are suppose text one another ...

 

every halloween, girls are itching for this day so they can dress as sl*tty as they want and its okay ...

 

 

so about 15 years ago, i visited china and all the american companies were pumping in their mass products to the chinese - free malboros cigarettes and coke were everywhere - well malboro was ridiculously successful in increasing the population of smokers however no one smokes their brand b/c US cigarettes are way too strong .. everyone smokes local chinese brands.... people do drink coke and whats unbelievable there are no no-name brand coke brands - just coke and pepsi - for a country that makes everything especially replica watches, they don't replicate coke .. quite strange

 

 

dam, scootering is fun ... i just took out a scooter for a drive around the streets of Shanghai and am still alive to blog about it .. scootering around shanghai is fun, i don't know why it isn't suggested in any guidebooks?

 

so right before we went to the underground euro purse and watch store, we witness this unofficial police force - its a group of citizens who police the streets themselves - suddenly a herd of guys surround the lonely popcorn sales vendor on the street and harass him - first stealing his popcorn machine, then his bike .... i have to admit it was quite entertaining but very sad at the sametime ...

 

this would be like if a group of Yorkville Business Association memebers beating up the hotdog stand guy and stealing his cart ...

 

so it basically consists of going to every table and offering cigarettes to the gentleman, lighting it for them and thanking them for coming ...

 

i didn't even have a chance to eat

 

fact - 99% of chinese smoke .

 

buying goods in china is surprisely expensive for everything .... only exported goods are cheap to international trading markets as no name jackets or shirts are shockingly expensive here ... even blog's dad remarked how pricey stuff was here when looking for a jacket. its just not the euro or american labels are are pricey but even local chinese labels ...

 

Guide to buy repelica euro watches and fashion handbags - i used to see guys on the streets flash photos of luxury watches or purses in the flea markest of hong kong but never actually saw what was involved in the process, but today i did. i was always under the presumption, they brought you to a backalley and then into a basement but this store was behind a real store's facade  ... so there was a secret door like Indian Jones movies where they pull a switch and opens a door to imposter purses and wallets .. the quality was ridiculously bad and the fact I spoke english greatly increased their asking price. then they were like u want a watch? then they opened ip another secret door to the watch area ... then an american guy walks in and tries to bargain 50 yuan for a watch (10 dollars) and the sales girls literally laugh away and push him out ... you can't even get a pair of Armini jeans for that price and they are spelled wrong. i was curious about the watches ... there selection was very vast of Rolo's, Tag Hauers, Patek Phillipes, IWC's and Mont Blancs .. the "sales lady" was explaining to me price depends if the watch used european parts .. my blog has a nice laugh in its head ... I had never seend imposter Pateks, IWCs or Mont Blancs.. she then shows me a rolex that was on sale and i was like this even isn't a model. she laughs ... then she tells me Patek Phillips are the best selling ones nowadays and shows me their top selling... I was like this even isn't a model ... I'm pretty familar with watches  and she says let me show u the brochure its the lastest one ... then she shows me a brochure of the replicas ... i had another nice laugh.. its funny, probaby a quarter of the models aren't even models but b/c they look fancy, people must presume they are ... I really liked the Mont Blanc one but she wanted over $100 Cdn for it !