Sunday, November 24, 2002

 

Such a Deal!

Danny has returned home after 2 weeks of biking across the rolling hills and then baking on my couch. We took our obligatory trip to San Francisco one perfect sunny day to do what tourists must do as proof that they're here. After a dim sum feast at Yet Wah (the original one on Clement & 23 Ave.), which I can highly recommend, we began our mini-tour.

After stopping at friends house near the beach, we cruised up the coast, past Golden Gate Park, with stops at various points to view the bridge. A ride down Haight street didn't hold the excitement it used to. It was borderline depressing. Danny's not much of a passenger for a long car ride....particularly on the hills of this city. So we lucked out on a parking spot and walked around Fisherman's Wharf...the ultimate tourist trap.

There was a store there that caught our eye with it's ornate window display. The centerpiece of the display was a huge silver cup, sort of like the Stanley Cup that's given to the winner of the National Hockey League, only 5 times larger!
A look into the store revealed more outrageous objects, including a lifesize silver statue of a man on a horse! We were wondering how much these objects cost when Andie (wife-of-Brahma) went in to see what else was in there.
She was attracted to an ornately carved Budha made out of jade (so it said). She looked at the tag to see the price. The clerk (or owner?) was an Asian women with a limited mastering of English, so something may have gotten mixed up in the translation. But apparently, the jade Budha, as were many other objects was $65,000. So, we thought we would take a pass....but clerk/owner was willing to hondle! Now, Andie's a hondler from way back, so she couldn't resist.

After a minute of refusing lower and lower offers, Andie reported back to us that the C/O eventually was willing to part with this special piece of "jade" for the grand sum of $350! Like I said, something might have got lost in translation, but we tried to translate to numbers into yen, first Chinese then Japanese, and nothing made sense. (one of her offers was $1200 which is more than 65,000 yen) We've had similar treatment in the border town of Nogales Mexico, but not this extreme!
So our lesson for today....everything's negotiable!

posted by ~Brahma 12:35 AM