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Bargaining in China for Souvenirs is an art form. First, you must pick a table on the street or in a market because if you go to a fancy store they have too much over head cost and will not bargain with you. Second, you must approach the item you want with care. You must not show interest in the item as that is a weekness the seller will exploit. You must pick the item up in a way as not to show interest but you still just want to know the price. Now comes the serious part when you ask the seller for the first price. Now since you are a foreigner you will be given the outragous foreigner price which if you pay you are a fool. Now before you start counter offering you should have a final price in your head that you will not go over. So I am willing to pay 20 yuan for an item and the first offer is 280 yuan. This is were you show them you mean business and will not be cheated. I go for the low counter offer of 10 yuan. Now you have just shocked the seller and most
of the time they will cut there next offer in half to say 140 yuan. You know this is too much and you counter offer again but before you do you must be polite and charm the seller. Ask them how they are doing or tell them they look nice today. Then after you have warmed they up go up by 1 yuan to 11 yuan. This may hurt the sellers feelings but if you are charming them they won't mind. Now you are going to go back and forth counteroffering keepingin mind the price you ultimately want to pay. Now remember while doing this you must keep charming them so they stay on your side. Eventually you will reach a stale mate with the seller where they will not go lower and so you start the walk away. Never walk fast on the walk away and turn around ever so often and magically the price will drop. You slowly walk back counter offering with the seller. If they still don't give you the price then you go for the last straw. You tell them in very certain terms that your final offer is 20 yuan and you will not
pay any more. At that point they will sell it to you for the price you want or may have to do a second walk away and at that point most oftend you will get the item at the price you want and victory shall be yours. You may not have the skills to pull off this bargaining style as you may not be charming person but if you do you will be more powerfull then any souvenir seller.
I will attempt to summarize the last part of my journey in China. We arrived in Chengdu and and I was not feeling well as I believe I had become slightly dehydrated from all the activities in Xi'an. I stayed in t he hotel during the day drinking water and resting. I made it out that night for dinner at a Hot Pot restaurant. The idea behind Hot Pot is that you have a boiling broth in the middle of your table and you put in pieces of thinly sliced meats, vegtables, and noodles to cook and then eat. We ordered two different versions of the broth the first one mild and the second one contained mounds of firery peppers
floating in this broth from hell. I like spicey and decided I would stick to the spicey broth and when you eat food cooked in the broth from hell it is amazingly spicey. I made it half way through the meal on the spicey side bit had to give up as it was too spicey to continue. I have found my spicey match and lost.
The next day we headed tp the worlds largest Buddha in Leshan. Walking up many steep stairs you are greeted with the giant head of the Buddha. You have to descend more steps to see the rest of the Buddha and his giant toes and then go back up more stairs to reach the top of the moun tain again and go down stairs to leave. The last day in Chengdu we went to the Giant Panda reserve and they are truely a highlight of the trip. The black and white panda bears are amazing to watch and fall asleep quickly after eating bamboo. Before leaving China you must see the Panda Bears.
Heading out by bus we arrived at the port city of Chongqing were we boarded our cruise ship the Ms
Fortune to sail down the Yangtze river all the while passing the three Gorges. The ship was nice and a grat way to see the river and the gorges but most of it was spoiled by the presence of smog and the inability to see long distances. Our final part was crossinf through the giant locks around the worlds largest dam. We ended our trip in Yichang for a one night stop to prepare for our longest traveling day. The next morning we boarded a five hour bus to get to a train station. From the train statio we took a sixteen hour overnight train to Guilin and from Guilin we took a two hour bus ride to Yangshou and walked for twenty minutes with our bags to our hotel in Yangshou.
Yangshou is a picturesque town set in the mountains of Southern China. The next day I rented a motor scooter and set off into country side but first negotiating the crazy uncontroled traffic of China. It was wonderful zooming through the country side on my motor scooter stopping along the way take in the scenery of the mountains. It became a little crazier on the way back
into town when it began to rain and I made my way back to my hotel safe but water logged. I then headed out for a calm bamboo raft ride on the river and ended my day watching traineds comorant birds fish for there owners. The next morning was another highlight of the trip as we hot air ballooned over the mountains during sun rise. Yanshou was one of my favorite cities of China. Later that night we took a two hour bus and then our final overnight train to end my china trip in Hong Kong. I had one night to explore the modern and crowed city of Hong Kong before flying to my next destination of Vietnam.
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sharon
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panda bears
they look so sweet and cuddly , but I know they are dangerous. I have so enjoyed your journey thru china. see you in vietnam.