Chinese market

Shopping is the most adventurous thing here particularly for foreigners.

For me shopping in a food market was the most interesting thing of all! You can find here anything including alive silkworms, frogs and frozen sharks, and other stuff which I don’t even know names of in my mother language.

Buying clothes and shoes is a totally different thing. I was trying to buy nice shoes for winter and it was really hard to get my size (39) in women’s section. Also I had to buy some clothes in size XL which in Europe would be too big for me as I wear size M. But I must say that in China there are so many choices in shops and different cities that I think it will be very hard for me to go back to small Dublin :)

Dawei in a fruit market

Silkworms

There is one catch in here money wise. Be aware of that sellers will charge you double or even triple times for products if you are a foreigner. Thank God you can always bargain and if you are good in that you can get a fair price. Of course I am in very good position as my Chinese husband always can help me out with bargaining. We bought many little presents for my family for much cheaper price and I know that if I was alone I would pay much more for them.

Although when we visited Beijing I was shocked that they wanted me to take a taxi for 100 Yuen from the train station to the hotel that we booked when it should costs only less than 20 Yuen! I guess that a lot of rich tourists from US would pay for it but come on it is like cheating!!! People just don’t realize that. Maybe because of that I hate Beijing. It happened many times there that they wanted me to pay more for things even in a fruit stalls on the street!!! Mentality of Beijiners is so sick in this matter. In Shanghai I didn’t feel as annoyed about this thing as in Beijing.