This morning after a swim in Sabrina's pool our driver picked us up for more, you guessed it, shopping. Livvy expressed feeling sorry for our "shufu" who spent his days waiting in the car for us to return. Of course, she did not suggest cutting our shopping short but still she displayed great sensitivity and enthusiastically called out "Xie Xie" to him every time he opened the door for her. Sabrina took us to a secret fashion store. So secret in fact was this store, that the elevator in the building wherein it resides does not even stop on the 9th floor where it is located. No kidding. As it turns out, the abundant high end designer merchandise may not have been lawfully acquired, and given that one needs to know the location and the trick of getting off on the 10th floor and walking down, I believe the store will enjoy a long life and bring much joy to visiting shoppers.
We then hit another jewelry market where Livvy indulged in her passion for accessories. Upstairs at the jewelry market there is a floor of leathergoods stalls, displaying knock off Gucci after knock off Chanel and on and on. Livvy fell in love with a black patent faux Chanel clutch but after negotiating to an excellent price, she discovered the handle was broken. The shop owner was a determined woman and tried her best to talk Livvy into a similar Marc Jacobs clutch but Livvy would have none of it, she wanted the Chanel with the gold handle or nothing. We turned to leave the stall, and the shop owner sprang into action motioning with one hand for an assistant to guard her stall while motioning with her free hand for us to follow her down the corridor. Unsure about the excursion, but keen for an adventure, we decided that she must have another clutch elsewhere in the building and so decided to follow. She guided us through several narrow corridors with a sense of urgency and onto a service elevator where we ascended several floors finally emerging onto a decidedly dingy hallway. Then it was down another hallway until we arrived at an innocuous looking multi-locked closet door. The woman, let us call her “Linda”, unlocked the door deftly and ushered us quickly into the dark closet, looking behind herself into the hallway to apparently ensure we had not been followed. She switched on a lightbulb dangling from the ceiling and as my eyes began adjusting to the light, my nose detected the sweet smell of fine leather goods. As the room came into focus, I found myself literally surrounded by neatly stacked shelves full of hundreds of Chanel, Ferragamo, Bottega and Gucci purses, wallets, and pochettes, all in or next to their original packaging. It was at this point where it became clear to me that yes there is a God and she is most definitely female. As I stood there frozen in leather shock, “Linda” quickly located another Chanel clutch from a stack on the floor (no original packaging), separated from the gleaming tower of original merchandise; even in a dark storage closet on the sixth floor of a market building in Shanghai there is a distinct hierarchy. “This noh real, mush cheapah,” she said. Then she produced another clutch in a beautiful soft cotton double C embossed bag, although similar to the first, this was clearly an entirely different animal. “This real,” proclaimed Linda, “I makey you special price.” She handed me the clutch, the patent leather gleamed in an entrancing fashion and was buttery to the touch. It had a heavier weight to it and smelled divine. But after snapping to my senses and consulting with Livvy, we agreed that she was too young for a real Chanel bag no matter the “specialness” of the price.
Faux clutch in hand, we then headed to the household fabric market in search of giraffe print fabric to make tablecloths for Justin's Bar Mitzvah party next year. By sheer luck, we happened upon a stall that had the exact fabric I was hoping for but the shop keeper spoke as much English as I speak Mandarin, and we were off to a shaky start. I tried pantomiming eating dinner at a large round table and smoothing the imaginary fabric of the tablecloth while holding my invisible chopsticks aloft. This got us absolutely no where although a small crowd did begin to gather around me. By divine intervention of the language gods, a kind hearted Chinese woman who works in Customer Support for an outsourced IT company (she later gave me her card and a plug for her employer), spotted our struggle and stopped to help interpret for us. For less than the price of renting 2 tablecloths back home (I kid you not for in matters of pricing I rarely kid) I bought 17 tablecloths and 170 napkins which would be made on the spot and delivered to Sabrina's apartment, hallelujah!!
To celebrate, we went for facials as well as mani pedis, and Japanese food at a lovely spot where Livvy promptly fell asleep on the table.
