the real china

marc, anna and i decided to hop over to mainland china today for a little shopping. legend had it that just beyond the lo wu border crossing lay a mall brimming with (donovan, stop reading now!) fake designer goods, cheap as cheap can be. took us about 20 minutes to get to the border with only one small train mishap.... for which i take full responsibility. we decided to meet ON the train but i was so excited about going to shenzhen that i got on about 2 minutes early and had to get off at the next stop to wait for marc and anna. oops. anyways, got to shenzhen, which is quite seriously just the other side of the border - in fact, we hear that there are plans in the making to combine it with hong kong to create one giant metropolitan area.
no surprise, the air quality in shenzhen is appalling. just past the giant mall, there are some grassy hills that were far too hazy for their own good. kind of scary to actually be in that kind of environment... we all developed a gross-air cough after a while.
the mall is insane - 5 floors of tiny stores selling mostly knock-off goods. the staff sit outside the store and try to entice you in by shouting at you "hey, missy missy.... copy handbags. you like belts? you wanna watch? what dvds do you need?". even marc was a missy in shenzhen.
so, one guy started following us around, trying to get us into his sister's store. after telling him to go away multiple times, we finally just started ignoring him. he fell back and followed us abotu ten steps back for a while then finaly disappeared. once we got into it, the bargaining was really fun! i am the proud(?) new owner of an elegant prada wallet, which ironically came with a certificate of authenticity. pretty sure it's not real, since i bought it in a sketchy backroom area complete with hidden door. nice.
anna got some sweet victoria beckham jeans and marc was overwhelmed by the selection of ties.
we decided that we need to have a chav night out in hong kong, and all buy juicy couture sweatsuits, gucci kitten heels and get acrylic nails decorated with diamonds, etc... we also found a store selling dresses more appropriate for ice skating than anything else. thankfully, the other big mall in shenzhen has an ice rink.
ooh. i also got a sweet gucci belt - helen, you'd be proud! and to round out the day, i bought a non-knock-off sundress. just to feel better about myself.
we also took the metro to another mall, which was a whole other adventure. turns out that hong kong dollars only work in the mall, so we were back and forth to machines, customer service and the bank in the subway station, just trying to buy a ticket.
the other mall was lovely and had the biggest starbucks i've ever seen. also had a fake taco bell with some unhappy-looking servers milling about in sombreros - a sad sad sight. apparently, all of the major supermarkets in china are vying for the upper-middle-class market and are tryign to be quite upscale. the one we went into was sooo nice but had skinned frogs. ew.
on the way back, a kid was pointing at us on the metro and totally got chewed out by his mom. it was hilarious!
got through the border with no problems and headed home... ahhhh... so easy.
anyways, gotta hit the gym, go to class and go find yoshihito downtown.