Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Travel Stories

My vacation is (sadly) almost over. I'm in a bakery in Dali completely food coma-ed out. Seriously, I can't move. What's making me feel especially fat is the 7 jars of peanut butter that are sitting right next to all the empty plates of food at this table. It's incredible.

I was in Lijiang a few days ago, and it was lots of fun. We just wandered around and did a ton of tourist stuff, and spent tons of money at KFC. (note: KFC in China is different than regular KFC. It's not the same thing at all. Get the Mexican chicken wrap, and the little egg custard tarts. And get the popcorn chicken too. And everything else.) Anyways, I was in this shop looking at this necklace that I wanted to buy, and I heard a Chinese guy ask how much it was, and the response: 15 kuai. I then asked the lady how much it was, and was pretty surprised when she said 25 kuai. The conversation goes like this.

-How much is this?
-25 kuai.
-but I just heard you tell that guy that it was 15 kuai!
-you understand Chinese don't you?
-yup
and then she just stares at me. she looked so uncomfortable, and eventually was just like "so.....15 kuai?" I didn't feel like bargaining for it, so I ended up not buying it.

2 comments:

  1. The KFC egg custard tarts! I remember those! A delicious & nutritious food that also had the virtue of being not warm beer, not ice cream, and not peanuts eaten by chopsticks as a meal, one...at...a...time.

    Peanut butter intake: Impressive! I don't know that a bear breaking into a mountain cabin in April could have done better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So the lady didn't run after you offering a deal? It made me think of Hu-hu in Istanbul - the people would chase after her as she walked away shaking her head. The price tended to plummet!

    ReplyDelete