A market is a market is a market, except in China

So we did a bit of a walk thru some markets yesterday.  Very interesting stuff !!  Two were markets in the sense we think of them and the other two were more part of a shopping center.  The first was hrbs and related things.  I use related very losely, because there were lots of bus and critters you could buy both dead and alive.  These included live scorpians and turles and other crawly things.  The dried turtles on a stick were interesting too.  Then next was a pet market.  Lots of things for your pets and also pets themsleves.  This was not a happy place as they don't seem to value animals the way we do.  So I shall not talk much about them.  Next was the shopping center and pedestrian street.  This was decorated with hanging lanterns and all sorts of cool stuff.  The shops were higher end and we didn't bother looking in them.  Lastly we went into a mall area and visited/purchased some pearls.  The prices were ok and we were happy to have the opportunity to by some things for Ally's future.  Lastly we went to a CD/DVD shop in the mall that had a good reputation.  I started looking around and they had some pretty good deals at 15 for a Blu-Ray.  I thought 'nice', they are like 24-35 bucks in the US and 15 is half.  Then I realized they were 15 yuan!  That is $2 for a blu-ray!!!!  So i began to snatch them up as quickly as possible.  I think i even bit another woman who reached for one I wanted.  So in all I think I got 6 Blu-rays and two DVD's for a total of about $20.  They verified that they would all play on our machnes in the US and that they were also in English.  Once back at the room we tested one of the DVD's and sure enough it works just fine and I am happy!!  The one movie I didn't get and was in stock but i just chickened out was........AVATAR.  Seriously!?!?!  I'm giving thought to going back and getting it.  I'll add afew pics of the market area.  One more thing that was funny.  We got to the middle of the pedestrian street, kind of a big square, and I look at one corner of stores and there is a McDonalds, KFC, Papa Johns, etc.  I turn around and look at the kitty-corner of the sqaure and there is a........McDonalds?!?!?!  I kid you not, there were two seperate McDonalds witin 100 yards of each other.  Has anyone ever heard Lewis Black's comedy bit about the location of a certain devil dwelling? (I'm trying to keep this G rated for Jo's school)  I think he said it was in Houston where he walked out of a Starbucks and looked accross the street only to see a Starbucks!!!!  That was how I felt.  I think I too found the devils dwelling!!!!  Jo and i laughed pretty hard at that.