Dai Wa Sek, just say NO!

Long day with the heat, touring and cell phone debacle.
Add drinks with friends, Damn Dan and his Vodka.
Add a couple locals, Mr. Hu and Sean.
Add the dice game (Dai Wa Sek), you lose means you drink.
Add Laila and the girls, evil dice players.
Add I suck at the dice game- me suck big time.
What do you have….
Saturday becomes Sunday and I don’t crawl out of bed till 5PM.

Cell Phones Ready

Saturday the 9th of August we went to get cell phones for Derek and myself. In China this is not like running down to your nearest AT&T or T-Mobile or handy dandy Walmart.
A. First you got to go to the phone store.
Imagine walking into BestBuy and only having phones in the whole store. Now imagine 100 or more sales associates and dozens of associates walking around in little uniforms carrying the “hot” phone. Now imagine 300 customers wondering around the store each wanting to look at the one phone you would like. Oh, and imagine that the air conditioner is only working at around 85 degrees so add in all the humans breathing and bingo bango – 105 degrees inside.
B. Pick out a phone.
So we pick out a phone. There are no sign a contract get the phone for cheap programs in china. Pick out a phone and pay for it.
C. Pay for the phone.
Found the phone, can we pay for it – nope – the sales associate has to escort you up to the payment collections associates? That associate takes your money then hands you a collection receipt.
D. Collect the phone.
Your original sales associate now takes you to collections were that associate goes to the back and brings your shiny new box.
E. Learn the phone.
Associate No. 1 now takes you back to her station to set up your phone. That is right. After the 15 minutes you have already spent analyzing your phone choices, he or she is now going to spend another 20 to 30 minutes showing you have to work your phone. Which we did pay attention to the first phone since the user guide is all in Chinese but the second phone was identical to the first so just a lot of blah, blah, blah.
F. Activate Phone.
Now you have your phone and you think you could make a call…nope. You have to activate the phone. Note to future travelers in China you have to provide your passport when you activate your phone. Which we did not have with us – Bill forgot to tell us that little tidbit. Mr. and Mrs. Li accompanied us on this shopping nightmare so it was decided to go eat dinner and then go to a China Mobile near the apartments.
G. Break from dealing with the damn phone.
Dinner was at Aladdin’s which is by the Sheloten Hotel. Don’t call it the Sheraton or your driver will take you to the SOS building. Dinner was yummy which is saying something. Too much has not been yummy.
H. Still trying to activate the phone.
Then off to the apartment to grab passports so we can activate the phones. This required stopping at 2 different China Mobiles. One could turn the phones on but not set up voicemail or my email. Second office could but had to pick out our numbers. China you get a list of available numbers. Cell numbers have 9 to 11 digits. If your number has a 4 in it, you got bad mojo but numbers with a 4 are cheaper then numbers without. I picked #33 on the list which had no 4 and is all the life number for Christ. Don’t ask – no bad mojo. My number cost $20. Derek picked out number 37 – no 4’s and his number cost $30. I still don’t get it but we avoided the 4’s like Mr. Li instructed us.

Phones are now working except I still cannot get my voicemail to work.