Old Post: HONGKONG TRIP - Mongkok Shopping!

April 18th, 2006
Posted by lunastark at 06:55 am on April 18th, 2006.

This is probably one of the most traumatizing experiences in my life. Yes, the place was similar to Divisoria, but I can take on the crowd, haggles, and possible snatchers anytime ! There is one thing to look out for when shopping in Mongkok: PUSHY VENDORS.



I was browsing through the stalls looking for some bargains. I noticed that the merchandise were similar to those found in Divisoria back in the Philippines (with a great price difference, it's more expensive in Mongkok =_=). I wasn't interested with those items so LA, my cousin's cousin, daughter of Tito Rick and Tita Ludy, led us to the inner part of the free market.

After I bought some Hongkong keychains and some cute colored pouches, something caught my eye. It was a really neat hat that I could wear with my civilian get-up! It's the same type of cap I saw back in Glorietta. Being the extrovert that I am, I walked towards the stall and started studying the cap with an excited look on my face (if I had known, someone should have sent me to a facial expression-control seminar....). It seemed like the saleslady sensed that I wanted the hat so she started handing me the calculator. I couldn't remember how many non-verbal gestures I made just to tell the woman that I was still thinking about it...so I blurted out "NO BUY YET! NO BUY YET! THINKING! THINKING! LOOKING! LOOKING!" in broken English just to simplify the language. =_=

I was already exasperated at this point. I was frustrated that the woman couldn't understand me...or refused to understand me since she kept on pulling me back to the stall when I tried to go away. >_< Gawd, her grip was really strong (I should add this to the list about negative sides of dieting....). @_@ When I saw LA, I called her with a cry for help and pleading eyes to boot. Thank goodness she got my message! She went to the rescue and pulled me away from the stall. However, the rude chinese saleslady got my other arm and pulled in the opposite direction! They ended up playing some kind of tug-of-war with me being the rope! When the two of us managed to get away. The woman was calling us "crazy" in Chinese (sheesh, talk about an ego defense mechanism). Our Tito Rick heard it, unfortunately for the woman, since he knew her language (I dunno what kind of chinese language it was...) and charged at the woman. LA hid somewhere while I lingered around the next stall pretending to admire a really fancy bag. At the corner of my eye, I watched our Tito Rick get really angry at the woman (who was already backing away but still muttering---good thing he knew Chinese eh?). This was the very first time I saw him that mad (should this count as one of my firsts? Nah...). @_@

Anyway, we moved on to the end of the stalls discussing what had happened. I was still stunned by the experience but it left me thinking to stay away from chinese vendors in free markets ---as far away as possible ---- unless I'm actually going to buy something from that stall. =_=

Whatta chaos! It ended well though. I loved the experience of free market shopping in Hongkong (except that psycho chinese vendor =_=).