My New Baby.

Sunday 9 March, 2014 

¥25.00      Breakfast (Panini)
¥14.00      Lunch 
¥505.00    Badminton Raquet (My baby!)
¥15.00      Dinner 
¥13.50      Tiramisu 

Total: ¥572.50 ($109.00)

Weekly Total: ¥1416.30 ($269.80)

Total Spend: ¥6187.50 ($1178.60 AUD)

- - -

Let's start with another awesome sight from HZ again. I wish I took a video - these four men were synchronised in their pulling efforts and it reminded me of the dwarfs in Snow White!

On Friday I bought some pretty crappy racquets from Walmart for only 60RMB. Today, KL and E decided to check out the badminton racquet stores along XiXi Lu, so I decided to go and take a look as well. There are 3 badminton shops close to uni - Yonex (Japanese), Victor (Chinese), and Li-Ning (Chinese).

I only recognised the Yonex brand, and my pro Korean friend recommended Yonex so I ended up getting a racquet from there. Now I can't blame my racquet if I play bad!

The prices varied from 390RMB upwards (to over 1800RMB!) 

I was looking to spend around 500. I found a racquet that I liked that was 540? I think. I tried to ask if there were different styles at that price and the lady ended up telling me that there was 30% off all racquets today. Score!

Strings are bought separately, and she also gave us a discount (from 70 to 40). I also purchased some good shuttlecocks which I split with a friend (60RMB for 12.) Even though the Shuttlecocks were just 'training' ones, they were heaps better than the cheap ones from Walmart which cost 40 for a tube. We only used 1 during an hour's game, while with the cheapo ones we had to go through at least 2.

My baby being brought to life! 

The lovely shopkeeper even threw in a free grip! I decided to go for a colourful racquet. Was originally going for a neon yellow grip to match the accents on the racquet but I don't know if I'm that bold..

Watching the whole process was fascinating. This is one of the machines they use to tighten the strings.

My beautiful baby. Full of personality! I love her(him?) so much!

After we walked back from the shops, my friend and I had to wait around a bit for my other friends to catch up (they left to buy pudding without me! :'( ) Anyway, there were jenga blocks at reception and a wild boy appeared so we played jenga with him.. he had an interesting play method. Here he is, holding the top half of the tower, telling my friend to help him take that block (29) for him. (At this point, it was very unstable!)

I must say, the difference between a good racquet and a cheapo one is just beyond words. The strings were so much tighter (I couldn't even budge them with my fingers!) and the racquet itself was just so much lighter. It was a dream to play with, and now I will be playing a lot more often to make sure I'm good enough for my racquet!

Going to end with another random pic of China life. Cat sleeping on drink packaging machine in a shop.