In less than a week we go to the U.S., and we still have a few things we need to purchase. So, we went to Narantuul Market today, because they have good buys on everything. One of our Mongolian language teachers said, "If it's at Narantuul, it will be the cheapest price in town." It's the Walmart of Ulaanbaatar. The difference is, Narantuul is an open-air market with tents and cubby holes all over a cemented slab and there are pick pocketers and hundreds of sellers and hundreds more buyers. One buys their individual items from each idividual seller. You can bargain a price, somewhat (more on that later). There are men roaming through the booths selling cokes in cups (like at a ball game), and dirty children with wide eyes looking up at you with a big question mark on their face (who's that white face?). There are drunks passed out on the outer edges of Narantuul. As we walk in or walk out, we do so quickly (ahhh, just the pace Kevin likes!) and we hold our bags and wallets close to our sides. We look confident. I don't feel totally confident.
Today was our fourth time to this market. Each time it has gotten easier. Today was our first time to go just us two! Before, we've gone with Mongolians or other Americans who are more seasoned than us. Today, we could ask prices in Mongolian, understand the answers, ask for larger sizes, smaller sizes, different colors, say yes, no and thank you. Kevin was interested in a Mongolian jacket. After his purchase, the lady said "Thank you" in Russian! We walked away laughing, realizing that she thought we were from Russia rather than America! We knew the Russian word since Kevin had spent a few weeks in Russia in 1998 for a teaching experience. The more we're here, the more we find out that Americans are few here; many of the caucasians are from Russia or Australia.
Then, just for fun, we looked at some "Western style" suit jackets. I took a picture of Kevin receiving "full service" from three or four different vendors who kind of swamped him with their wares. "This tom jacket"... ("tom" means large); "Yamar onkte vey?"... (what color?); "Horden toven myunk"...25,000 Tugricks (price)... and, to me, "Mush Goi?" asking "Very nice looking?!"... and of course I answered, "Team....sacken!" (Yes, handsome!)...and on and on. He had all of these people hovering around him offering him different jackets to try on. In the end, he didn't find one that fit right and we left with a fun memory. I'm sure the vendors were disappointed.
We went on to purchase a few more items. We were getting low on money, and we knew we needed to take the bus home. We had walked and it took about 40 minutes without our newly purchased load. Now, the bus only takes 600 Tugricks for the two of us...a mere 40-ish cents total, but we were truly getting low on money! The final purchase was to cost 32,000 Tugricks; we had 31,900 T, but needed 600 for the bus. I pulled out the 600 Tugricks we needed for the bus and asked the lady if we could purchase it for 31,200. She looked at us like we were cheapies...what was the small amount more, anyway? I fanned the 600 T in front of us and said, "Avtobus". Her face broke into friendly warmth. She understood. Sure, she'd take the little less. I must say this happens often...with living on cash! I'm always spending up to the last tugrick when needing to get many things. But there's certainly a lot of flexibility among the salespeople...not quite like Walmart where the price is THE PRICE!
We were home 2 1/2 hours later (this includes that 40 min. walk and the 15 min "avtobus" (city bus) ride. Kevin had weathered a shoooooooopping trip and I was able to "shop" (spoken in staccato, mind you).
2 comments:
awesome!!! this sounds like so much fun! very overwhelming, but fun nonetheless. and i give you an A++ for your descriptions! :)
You are so blessed to have Kevin as your husband.... can you imagine you father, the all time male shooooooooper in a place like that????? :)
Post a Comment