Dongmen Market Take 2

On Jason's first full day in China we went to Dongmen Market, a few city blocks of malls and crowded shopping markets, which -so far- is my favorite place to shop in Shenzhen. 

Of course, the first place we stopped was at the Modern Toilet restaurant, where we got a quick photo op with their giant poo mascot.

The atmosphere is delightful.

From our tablet, we were able to look down at the street and watch this amazing woman who worked at a stall which sold BBQ squid. You HAVE to click on this video. She was amazing. She did this whole "marinatin' muh squid" dance repeatedly the whole time we were there. I had tears in my eyes for pretty much the entire meal. It seemed like it would draw a crowd, but actually she was like the only stall with no customers. Maybe they were intimidated by her moves.

On our way out of the restaurant,, we checked out some of the poo-related products for sale. Unfortunately, we were in someone's way. "Ooops, pardon me!"

While there are some shops in Dongmen where there are prices on the tags, most of the places require you to barter with salespeople to buy the item you're interested in. For me, this isn't really ideal, because the price of a product usually determines if I'm interested in it. If you ask a salesperson here for a price, you automatically enter yourself into this song and dance of negotiating prices, which is kind of annoying if you were just curious, just trying to get a handle on the store's price range, or just looking. Anyway, even though it's not my preference, I've gotten kind of used to the bargaining, and it can even be sort of fun. But it's something you really have to be in the mood for or else it can be irritating. I wound up getting quite a few new things at the market, but unfortunately it really wasn't Mel or Jason's style at all so it wasn't totally enjoyable for them.

Anyway, may I now present the top 3 store names found at Dongmen Market today:

3. "the mashing a calculator pad to make a store name" shop

2. Titi

1. Two shops down from Titi: Jiss.

We finished the night by going to Pizza Hut in the Sea World area by our apartment (where a "regular" pizza is smaller than a personal size at home) and getting massages at Foot Massage Massage (where we got to watch The Voice: China on personal TVs), where Jason may or may not have had his spine permanently fractured. It was a good day.