The salespeople had a good time helping the boys skate and were curious, wondering about our family dynamics and how we ended up with two Chinese boys.



When we agreed to buy the shoes was when the bartering began. The prices they quoted were beyond ridiculously high, and I wondered how many people actually give in and pay a much higher amount than they should. I told them repeatedly that my friend had purchased Heelys just last month for 10 U.S. dollars and they told me no way. I finally told the boys to take the shoes off to make my point that I wasn't going to pay their price, and that is when they agreed to barter a bit more. Jeff, who won't even bargain at a garage sale, just stood on the sidelines chuckling. He can't stand bartering and would probably be one of the guilty ones who paid too much just to avoid having to dicker over a price.

We finally agreed on 100 yuan for Ben's shoes, which was closer to 13 U.S. dollars, and 75 yuan for Caleb's.

After purchasing the shoes, we decided to look around a bit as we had promised a toy for Micheline if she stayed back at the hotel with her siblings.

I tried on a few beautiful silk jackets that were only at one particular stall. No one else had the same quality, but they wouldn't come down to under 50.00 U.S. dollars, so I decided I didn't need one that badly.

I saw an outfit exactly like one I had bought Micheline in one of the small shops in Guangzhou, and bartered a bit just to see what they would come down to. Unfortunately, they were willing to sell it to me for less than I had already paid three days ago. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

As we were preparing to leave, we wandered through the electronics section. Big mistake. Both boys began to beg and plead for video games, and I told multiple vendors that we weren't buying any. We stopped at one stall to see how much they wanted for their I-pods and found to our surprise that we could buy a 2-gigabyte I-pod for only 50.00 U.S. dollars after some serious bargaining. We asked to use their phone and called our hotel. Taylor said he had paid 150.00 for his, and although these weren't quite as fancy as his, we figured they would do the job. The whole time we were bargaining, both boys turned on their puppy dog eyes and charm as they pleaded for a Gameboy. Knowing we only had one hand-held game for a 12 hour flight home, we--probably foolishly, since Ben doesn't do well after playing video games--consented to buy the Gameboy Advance SP when the vendor agreed to a great price as well as two video games thrown in for only 2.50 apiece.

By this time we were tired and hungry, and the place was miserably hot and stuffy, so we started to head for home only to realize that we hadn't yet bought Micheline anything. We ended up buying her a doll that I probably could have paid the same price for in the U.S., but it was a really nice quality one, and most of the others were incredibly cheap looking. The vendor was not one who was friendly while dickering and acted offended when I offered him a much lower price and turned away from me. I just wanted to get out of the heat, so I paid him and we left, hailing a taxi back to our hotel for our last night in Beijing.