Memories of China: Gift Hunting

Nearly everything is cheaper in China. Unless you're into paying for overpriced western brand name items. Then in that case you're an idiot. I mean, why would you go all the way to Asia to buy something from Gucci or Prada? It doesn't make sense.

Oh and Häagen-Dazs is more expensive there too.

I'm not paying $8+ CAD for a tiny container...

There are also things only available in China and it was my goal to buy as many gifts as possible for Theresa. If you recall, she did a miserable job of buying gifts for herself. If you want something done right, you need to do it yourself.

My personal preference for giving gifts is getting a big gift, and then compliment it with a bunch of smaller gifts. It's always seemed to be the best way to do things. And so I ran around China easily grabbing tons of smaller gifts such as food, cute things or t-shirts from my favorite clothing store Metersbonwe.

But I couldn't find the one BIG gift to put it all together. Theresa is the kind of person that'll go "Oh, it's nice. Thank you very much." when you give her something. She's that kind of a person. So it's extremely difficult to find a gift that she actually wants, that'll make her smile and become giddy with excitement. And then you overwhelm her with all the other little gifts.

Meanwhile, Steam decided to have it's annual Summer Sale and she proceeded to buy me nearly a dozen games. I'm not sure who was supposed to be giving who gifts while I was in China.

Durr...

But then, I saw something. Something in Chengdu.

It was after another disastrous dinner. You can read my description of Sichuan cuisine here. But I didn't want to eat anymore of that greasy food and left the table. Next to the restaurant was an arcade and I stepped inside and found the perfect gift for my girlfriend.

A massive, plush turtle.

Theresa loves plush toys, she also loves turtles, and if she can use it as a pillow or a blanket, all the better. I could feel it mocking me with its pink blush and stupid little bow. I had to win it.

My goal is to do this one day, except with turtle plushies.

How this arcade game worked was there were multiple prizes and if a prize received a set number of points, you won it. After selecting a prize, a wheel spun and when you stopped it, depending on what you stopped on, number of points were added or deducted.

I don't know why, I know these things are rigged, but I had to try. I felt like I could win. I mean, $10 CAD would have gotten me enough tokens to try nearly 3 dozen times. And I was willing to keep playing until I won or ran out of money.

But then, after handful of attempts everyone else had finished dinner and we had to leave. I never won the turtle, and in the end, I found a similar, smaller version in Hong Kong. Theresa still loved it but it's not the same.

I'm still very bitter about not winning that turtle. and I know it's still mocking me with its stupid smile.

I hate you...