Another shopping experience

I think most of the people reading this blog know I love to shop.  I especially love to thrift shop because it feels somewhat like a treasure hunt.  Shopping in China feels more like a crap shoot.  Sometimes you can get a good deal and sometimes you come home with a piece of cleverly disguised trash.  A couple of days ago some foriegn friends of ours invited us to go to a well known market here.  This is a place that foreigners like to go to buy fake stuff(purses, shoes, watches, etc).  You can also buy typical Chinese items such as tea sets, silk items, calligraphy, and real pearls.  I was curious and so was Sam so we went.  The place was a like a four story flea market with lots of booths and plenty of "expensive" looking things.  All of the girls in our group wanted qipao's (traditional chinese looking blouses or dresses). One of our friends had bought a blouse at one booth before so she thought the woman there would give us a good price.  I found a real silk blouse that I thought would be perfect to wear on our next trip to Hong Kong.  It was either a nicer blouse than the others or the woman knew that I really liked it because she was not bargaining low enough to my liking.  She started off by telling me it was 380rmb but I quickly got her to come down to 150rmb.  Another girl in the same booth said she thought the lowest price they could give me was 100rmb.  I decided to walk a couple of booths down to see the competition.  Sure enough the same blouse was at another booth.  The girl there gave me a similar price so I offered her 70rmb.  She said no way then told me how nice the blouse was and how she couldn't sell it so cheap.  I told her 80rmb was the highest I would pay and when she said no way I said nevermind and walked away.  As I walked back to my friends she called out after me and agreed to my price.  She wasn't very happy when I made her get a bigger size for me but I was very happy with my purchase. All my friends congratulated me on my bargaining skills.  Sam considered having a wool coat made for him (They have booths with tailors and bolts of cloth willing to make you any garmet you like), next he pondered over some watches, and then finally as we were about to leave I turned around to see him bargaining over a pair of "Diesel" jeans.  He had no idea how much to pay for them so he asked me to help bargain.  It was close to closing time so this girl was eager to make a sale.  Sam and I played good cop bad cop (I'm always bad cop) until she agreed to 100rmb. (about 15usd)  He told her his size and she started to put them in a bag when I said that he needed to try the jeans on before we bought them.  Both Sam and the girl looked at me like I was crazy but I was firm about it.  Although both Sam and the girl complained to eachother and to me it was really good he tried them on because they were too small, the next pair was too big, and finally the third pair fit....except they were too long.  The girl said it was no problem because for 10rmb we could go upstairs and have them hemmed on the spot for us.  Sam was pretty tired though and told her to forget the entire sale.  The girl was so mad at this time that she said she would have someone else take the pants upstairs for us we would only have to wait 20minutes.  20 minutes seemed too long to wait for Sam so he said no again.  This time the girl said she would lower the price to 90rmb for the pants so that altogether (hemmed and all) it would be 100rmb.  I urged Sam to accept not only because it was a good deal and the girl seemed really put out, but also because it saved me from hemming the jeans by hand. So Sam agreed and all were happy.  That is until we got home and Sam realized they were still too big.  :)