All I needed was some cheap flipflops for everyday and the shower. Haiyan (my roommate) thought I would like to go to a huge department store in downtown Beijing and buy flip flops there. So, how hard could it be to find flipflops? Well, shoes are kind of a big deal in China.
Their shoes=not cheap at all. We found some razzle dazzle flip flops, but they were 300-500Y (divide that by 7.5 and you get $). Expensive for American standards! We went to many stores and found very little flipflop selections, let alone cheap ones. According to Haiyan, the reason why cheap footwear is not available is because if someone wears nice shoes, their journey will be full of prosperity. Yeah, I know, sounds like it should be in a fortune cookie.
Nonetheless I found some plain ol flip flops, but for not as cheap as I would have expected:
I always wanted to be a foot model!
I also bought a shouji (cell phone). I tried to find the cheapest one possible, but yet again, expensive options were everywhere. Cells are definately on par with American prices, perhaps more, which is amazing for a country with over 300M registered cell phone users. I bought this little hum dinger for about $50:
I still have to buy a SIM card that will let me actually use the phone. Thats the only way the cell phone will work and they're always sold separately, so, no one has different service, only different types of phones.
PS- My new favorite food (one of many to come, I spose) is hongshao dofu! Tofu in some kind of brown braising sauce... yummmmmmmyyyyyy
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