My Experiences at Han City; the Shanghai "Fake" Market

One of the most interesting things about having a job where you get to travel to strange places, is the fact that you get some crazy stories. This is a re-post of one of my favourite stories from when I travelled to Shanghai for a LiVefire in 2013.

Prior to travelling to China, I had always heard of the Knockoff or "fake" Markets that people went to.  It was not until I was in Shanghai, that I decided (with some of my colleagues) to give it a go, if only for the experience. It is a bit of a long read, but I wanted to get the actual crazy nature of the experience down.

Before we went though, we decided that we should research it. On google we found several reviews, and several different markets that could go to. The two main ones seemed to be:

• Han City in Nanjing Xi Lu( 580 Nanjing Xi Lu, near Chengdu Bei Lu 南京西路580号, 近成都北路)
• Shanghai Science and Technology Museum Basement (apparently one of the largest)

We decided to go to Han City, as it was the closest to our hotel. I also noted the advice that every single website or review that I saw, said that it was all about bargaining. Mainly that you should start bargaining around 10% of their initial price and not pay over 20%.  Also that if the store keeper is adamant that their "lowest" price is the one they are giving...it's not...all you need to do is walk away and they normally will come running saying that your lower price is OK. In addition, they said that everyone spoke perfect English, which from my experiences in both Beijing and Shanghai is definitely not normal. Trying to get around is very challenging because even the taxi drivers don't read or speak English generally. Thus you always need a taxi card from the hotel, but I digress.

All of that being said I was astounded because I thought that bartering would be knocking like 25% off the price...not 80 to 90%. It also doesn't help that I am not the best at negotiating this type of thing. I was sure though to mention this to my colleagues so that they were aware of what to expect. I don't think however, that anything could have prepared us.

Suffice to say, we got a cab to the entrance to Han City. At first it is strange because it really looks like a normal mall. It is the first 4 floors of the building that is a pretty big size, and has a multitude of people going up and down the escalators. It is all fake stuff though....hundreds of "stores" which are small, a few metres across a few metres deep. You could buy everything from "brand" name clothes (including an inordinate number of places selling different brand name underwear...it seemed like every second store there was selling boxers or little tiny thongs...) to electronics, to luggage, to expensive watches, to DVDs, pretty much anything that you can think of.

So...we started off by doing the logical thing and walking in the front door. We didn't get 5 feet through the door and to a store, before we were approached by this 4.5 foot tall girl in her 30s that said to us: "What you looking for? What you want? You want watches? You want Hand Bags?" To which one of my colleagues said "Yes". She asked us to follow her.

Now, I can tell you that I was expecting to be pulled into a store, and we would haggle. This was not the case however, she took us up the second floor escalator and into a side hallway towards an elevator. Now, it would have not been as shady if the elevator would not have been the freight elevator for the facility, and right by the loading docks. At this point I was starting to freak about a bit. My colleagues were in much the same state of mind, and she could see that we were nervous.

She addressed this by saying, "We go to my store, it upstairs, good price". She continued to explain that they have better quality materials and it is less likely to be raided by the police because it was not downstairs (In very broken English). So reluctantly we continued to follow her into the elevator and up to one of the upper floors of the building.

I looked to my colleagues, (who are all bigger guys) and we could tell that we were all thinking the same thing...that if anything happened that the four of us could get out of there based on our size. So we exit the elevator and we are in this hallway with a ton of doors, it was very matrix-esque (only not clean and brilliantly white, but a little dirty and it dingy). We walk for a minute or so around a few corners and she punches a code by one of the doors to get inside the room.

We enter into the room, and there is shelves upon shelves of "real" designer bags, and a room full of "real" designer watches. My Fiance had said she wanted a specific brand of bag. So I started there while my colleagues went to look at some "real" Rolex, TAG, Omega, and many other watches. After looking through the bags in the racks (full of "real" Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and several other brands) I asked if she had any Fendi Bags. She said No, and I proceeded to say that it was unfortunate as that was what I was looking for. I walked towards the watch area, and she said "I find, I find" and immediately got on her cell phone talking a mile a minute in Mandarin.

I started to look at the watches as I thought that it would be interesting to see what I could find there. Not 5 minutes later, she comes and pulls me back towards the bags, and had a selection of three or for different Fendi bags. I looked at them and selected one that was interesting. and asked how much, knowing full well that I was not going to pay a stupid amount of money for something that although looked nice, was definitely not real.

"$4800 Yuan." (approx. $825 CDN) to which I scoffed, and offered a whopping $300 Yuan (approx $50 CAD) in return. All of this was done, silently on a calculator that she pulled out to tell me the price. the second offer was 1200 Yuan. No I don't know about you but a 75% reduction in price on the first exchange absolutely blew my mind. It also made me wonder if people would actually pay that as they made no attempt to claim that it was actually real. It was always quite clear that it was completely fake. But.. "VERY HIGH VERY GOOD QUALITY!!!"

This continued for 10 minutes me going up to a whopping 400 Yuan ($15 CAD more) and her coming down to 800 yuan. At which point I made a point to make a move to walk away to the walk room where my colleagues were still looking at watches. Immediately she came down to 500 Yuan and I said that I had to think on it still. I went and stood by my colleagues looking at the watches, and she kept pressuring me for it. I finally said, that 400 was my final price as I didn't have a crazy amount of money on me. Still pressure, she came down another $50 yuan. I continued to play hard ball and said that this was all i had to spend. Finally at long last, she said "Fine." and I passed over the money and was the proud owner of a hand bag, that i got for whooping 8% of the original asking price. I am also more than sure that I probably over paid...but for less than $70 CAD, it is not a bad bag, even if it is "real".

Finally with her off my back and my bag in hand, I went to my colleagues and started looking at the "real" watches. After 20 minutes we had 4 watches picked out (two "Rolex", a "Tag" and an "Omega"). I was ready this time...the one colleague that I was in on the deal with however was a bit shocked when the first price he gave was 9800 Yuan (approx. $1860). After our first couple of low ball offers the price came down to 4800 yuan and we came up to $1350. The same haggling process went on for 20ish minutes or so and we got them down to $2000 Yuan. We didn't have that many Yuan on us, and we definitely didn't want to use a bank machine or our Visas....I mean we were in a sketchy building in China.  ;)

After a quick conversation between us in broken Spanish, French and German so as to get the point across between us so that they couldn't understand what we were saying. we agreed that we would go no higher. He insisted repeatedly, and we finally said no, and walked for the door, it instantly came down to 1450 Yuan. We still insisted and pulled the walk out of the "store" routine and started the trek back to the elevator... after 10 seconds we hear him yell... "OK OK YOU PRICE YOU PRICE" We counted our existing Yuan and we were short, but the one guy had the money in US dollars. The guy offered us a divide by 6 exchange rate (definitely like a half dollar on the dollar in our benefit as the exchange rate is really 5.5) and we finally had our watches. Not bad for around 10% (after the exchange rate) of the original asking price.

All in all they were around $60 a watch, and even though they are "real" brand name watches, they are of higher quality than you would normally find in a watch for that price. We then proceeded downstairs and walked around the mall using the same tactics a few times to buy some other Nick knacks. We then left and went back to our hotel.

I must say that it was definitely a pretty crazy experience, and actually kind of invigorating. Both times we haggled we found that it gave a pretty crazy adrenaline rush. Also it left us feeling that we wondered what we actually COULD have got the items for. After all is said and done, I know that we probably could have got them for less, but we were still happy as it was an experience like no other.

I think the morale of the story is that yes we know it was probably a bit of a waste of money...so if you are not keen on spending a few hundred dollars to have a bit of fun than this is not for you. If however you are looking for a unique and fun experience of haggling and getting some decent items back in return, it is definitely worth the trip. Plus I now have a "real" Rolex, a "real" Omega, and a "real" Fendi Bag that I can admire. :)

Jamaica - Part 5 - The final Post - Review

As much as I enjoyed Jamaica, I was definitely ready to come home.  This is the same as most of the sit on a beach vacations that I have ever been on.   Although I do miss the sunshine and rainbows:

Overall I would have to rate Jamaica very highly, the food for the most part.  The hotel was right in the middle in terms of quality, not horrible, but not great.  Wedding was a disaster due to the hotel.  The outings that we went on Dunn's River and the Luminous Lagoon were some of the coolest things I have done.  

The following are my ratings:

Holiday Inn SunSpree Hotel - 5 out of 10 - Location was a big selling point, as it was close to the airport but due to the wedding fiasco it gives me little satisfaction to know they don't resolve conflict well.  

Food - 6 out of 10 - Scotchies was definitely a highlight and definitely highly recommended. The limited buffet at the hotel and the limited a-la-carte restaurants didn't allow for a lot of variety. 

Excursions - 7 out of 10 - Both of the two that we did were amazing.  

Overall - 6 out of 10

If you are looking to go to Jamaica, definitely recommend it.  In Montego bay, the best hotel from what two tour guides said as well as from some of our friends who have been there before was the Iberostar Grand Rose Hall.  It costs a little more, but it is well worth it.

Let me know your thoughts if you have any!  I will be off to San Francisco in a few weeks for my work which is always a great time!

Jamaica - Part 4 - Food and Excursions

Food: 

The big kicker at any resort.  The buffet was far from the best that I have ever eaten at a resort.  I am in no means a foodie, but when there is only 8 to 10 things plus salad, bread, and dessert, it is kind of hard to get excited about it.  Of the food that was there: Breakfast was pretty standard...the boiled bananas were quite gross though.  Lunch, was hit and miss, but a couple of days they had some great wraps, and other goodies.  Finally, dinners had some fun options but limited each night.  All in all there was always food there that was edible but definitely disappointing.

A-la-carte restaurants were definitely better, as they generally always are.  They were also limited though, with only 4 available.  We ended up going to 2 of them, because one was a Japanese place that there was a $20 extra charge for and the other was a seafood place. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a hate on for seafood...although they did have steak and chicken options as well. There were apparently also extra charges for the steak though, from what I have heard, which sucks.

Of the two we did go to, one was an Italian restaurant, which was really quite good.  There wasn't a crazy amount of pasta though which was sad, because I love it.  Overall though the pasta that was there (I had the Gnocchi and spaghetti with veggies) was quite good, I was happy with it.

The other place was a Jamaican style place that was amazing.  I had the Jerk chicken, with spicy jerk BBQ sauce.  The sauce was awesome in itself.

Finally, we went off resort a couple of times to Scotchies:

It was recommended by several people back home and was about a 10 min walk from the resort.  I was skeptical when it was called the best Jerk in Jamaica, but to that end, it was by far the best two meals I had here in Jamaica. Not only was their chicken and pork good, but their sausage was amazing too.  Sides were great as well including the standard rice and beans and Festival (tasted kind of like a donut but as a stick instead of round....hard to describe).  Plus the hot sauce w as amazing, if it didn't need to stay refrigerated we would have bought some of it!  Highly highly recommend going to one of them if you are in Jamaica.

Excursions:

We went on two excursions. One to Dunn's Falls and the other to the Luminous Lagoon. Both were awesome, and well worth the additional cost.  

Dunn's Falls is definitely unique from what I have done before.  Most of the time at waterfalls, you get there take a few pictures, and you leave.  Here you actually climb the falls in the water:

It is surprisingly not too strenuous, and a lot of fun when they get you to jump in pools, or go down a natural water slide. It took approximately an hour.   With the tour we were with JTL which provided an awesome guide and bussed us back and forth from the resort.

The Luminous Lagoon was probably the most unique thing I have seen anywhere.  Basically the water glows when you disturb it at night.  It happens due to micro-organisms that absorb the UV light. When we were first getting to the dock, it was raining so hard that we were contemplating skipping it. The rain stopped however and we were able to get on the boat and more awesomely go swimming. Every stroke you take you can see for a second or so. Here is a picture from behind a boat, I didn't get anything myself as everything I have is non distinct unfortunately:

Again highly recommend this one, the bottom is a bit gross so you get a bit tired from all the swimming, however you are not out there for more than fifteen or twenty minutes.

Will post my final thoughts next post.

Jamaica - Part 3 - The Wedding Experience

I didn't intend on posting anything until we did some of the expeditions and a-la-carte meals but after last nights experience, I not only am writing this, while I am siting on the beach...(proof:

)...but will be writing up a review where I can....because, the Internet.  

Let me start off by saying that I truly believe that any wedding is not about the venue or what happens, but about the people there.  In our case the Bride and Groom looked stunning and we all had an amazing time with everyone despite everything that happened.

With that being said in any event there always runs a possibility for things to go wrong.  Sadly when it is a wedding you know there is just a ton more stress for the Bride and Groom. To which the planner from the Holiday-Inn SunSpree resort, as well as the staff can really minimize the issue by being accommodating.  Sadly in this case this didn't happen. Not in my opinion at least. The following is purely my observations, I was not involved at all in the planning etc.

It started with rain, while sucky, delayed the start of the ceremony as the venue needed to be changed. Unavoidable, but an hour delayed start.  Once it did start I thought our problems were over....sadly the videographer forgot to press record and the bride after having been revealed and walking down the isle was stopped and had to redo the whole walk again.  I felt so bad, but the ceremony was amazing in the end and I'm not sure there was a dry eye.  

Reception then started and was going well.  The food and cake was all amazing it was not until after dinner the true problems started.  By the time all the speeches were done and the first dances were complete, it was just before 10.  There had been no concessions for the delay and the DJ apparently was done at 1030. No matter what was said, the holiday-inn was not making any concessions.  The bride was almost in tears by the time a few of us pulled the manager aside and said that we don't care what it costs lets just make this work.  The answer was still no, no, no...until we threatened to post reviews online.

We finally managed to convince them to let their staff go...all except one bar tender (more on this later) ...and we worked out an extension with the DJ ourselves to get his services until an acceptable time. Overall, after all the frustration, it was not expensive at all in the least to 'fix the problem', we paid with the cash in our pockets.

We had an amazing time after all a the stress was gone and we closed down not only our time in the private room, but the late night restaurant as well.  

One final thing to note was that to get the bar tender in the room with us, in addition to the cost of everything else at this ALL INCLUSIVE resort they had to pay for what was supposed to be bottles of alcohol.   Now, if one is paying for specific types and quantities of alcohol, personally I expect that that's what we will actually get.  When I first got there we noticed that a) the bottles were not full, but partially full, and b) some kinds of alcohol ordered were not all there.  We only questioned the second one however, and they brought an opened bottle of the missing spirit.  Shady if you ask me. 

Overall, other than the food, I can't say that I have any love for this hotel in this matter.  I would definitely not recommend a wedding here.  The service manager was not very accommodating.  The DJ was not one I would ever hire again.  Most importantly, a bride should not have the kind of stress my friend did on one of the most important days in her life.  Being in the middle of wedding planning myself it definitely is eye opening and I hope we can avoid issues.

Oh...and we are fully planning to posts the reviews anyways. :). Will post excursions and restaurant details later!

Jamaica - Part 2 - Holiday Inn SunSpree

Once we got to the resort, the check-in line was crazy long.  Took about an hour to check-in, but hey they had a lady serving fruity fantastic drinks.  Thus we had a couple while waiting.

Our room, was an upgraded ocean front room.  We had a pretty fantastic walk out patio right on the beach, really cool:

The room itself pretty lack luster.  The bathroom not great, bed was warped, but it was clean enough...which is more than some places i have stayed.  To be honest it is what i expect from a holiday inn.  And its not like we were going to spend a ton of time in there anyways.

Bar areas were well stocked and the main pools pretty nice.  The stage was in the middle of the pool area though and well it was almost unbearably loud right by there.  The evening entertainment was not very good.  Although one of the nights so far they had a fire breather who kinda reminded me of Michael Jackson before he was white, when we talked to him at the late night bar after the show. I don't expect it to get better.

Beach/Pool Chairs as always were a problem.  Unless you were up at the crack of dawn people would drop towels and not be there all day.  Sucky.  The saving grace was actually that they had a breakwater island right by the main beach:

Has tons of chairs and people didn't leave stuff there all day, only while they were actually there. It was divided by waste deep water so the 'oldies' would not get to them or cared not for them until at least breakfast.

Mornings were also awesome:

Done for now.  Food and excursions to come later!

Jamaica - Part 1 - Getting there!

Let me start off my saying, my condolences to all you folks stuck at home in the horrendous snow we have been getting there.  Talk about a great week to be away... :) ... To be honest I was not sure we would be getting here.  When I first heard that snow was coming, I was quite nervous as with airports/airlines these days it seems like the slightest snow or rain (amongst other things) cause all sorts of problems felt all around the world. I was continually checking the flight status, but it formally stayed as on time.

I got up suffice to say at 4:30am. Not because I had to but because I could not sleep anymore.  I had over a foot of snow that I needed to clear away before we could even attempt to leave the house.  Clearing it took the better part of an hour, and it had not actually stopped showing. I was hopeful that the plow would come by before we left, as our awesome neighbours had agreed to keep an eye on the drive while we were gone. Sadly it didn't, which means we totally owe them BIGTIME, and that trying to get to the actual airport started off worse than it finished.  The 20min drive took about an hour, and featured pretty much all bad things, blowing snow, falling snow, covered roads, old people, etc.  

I had actually never flown from Hamilton before, but because there was two whole flights leaving that day I started to understand how it could be still on time.  To their credit, we were ready to go by our boarding time and were delayed only by about 15 minutes as the wind had picked up.  I was not happy that we had to cross the Tarmac to actually get to the plane though...longest walk ever. 

After that the flight was quite uneventful....I think my favourite part was when we were getting de-iced and people were complaining something fierce about the fact that they could not see out of the windows.  It never ceases to amaze me what pisses people off...specially something that is all but gone by the time you are in the air.  Food on the plane was also horrible...as is the case with most flights, unless you are in business class.

Once we landed, we were anticipating that we would be a crazy amount of time waiting for customs.  We had heard horror stories about 1.5 hr lineups etc.  So much so that there was an option to pay 80USD per person for expedited service.  We decided against it, as that's a lot of money.  We were not really in any sort of rush at all anyways...plus we had to wait for everyone else coming to our friends wedding anyways.  Turns out there was absolutely no line up because it was a Monday and we were through customs and picking up baggage in less than 10 mins.  All in all we were at the airport for about 30 mins.  Pretty good.

Our hotel was the Holiday Inn SunSpree, which is about a 10 minute drive, if that, from the Airport. Definitely would not have been my first choice, but it truly is the people that make up a vacation anyways. More to come when I have some more time to write! I leave you with the following pic:

/Jonathan