got the cell phones, moving on!

so it's our second week in suzhou, china and we're split between seeking out new experiences and wanting progress settling into the new apartment / lifestyle.  we spend 5 hours in a mall between China Unicom and Sundan Electronics, attempting to discern the many attributes cell phones tout these days.  will it work when we return to america?  how many megapixels does the "super camera" have?  is it 2G, 3G, or 4G?  i could go on but i have a feeling most of you would skip the remaining examples - the only reason i'm tempted to put them in is to try to reenact the pain / torture we went through narrowing down our choices.  we choose 2 samsungs for the kids and 2 lenovos for carly and i tell the salesperson we're ready to pay.  he takes us to the cashier station - 4 cashiers with no one in line ready to take your money in return for a fappio (official chinese receipt - they're very big on paperwork over here - take it very seriously).  capital one visa won't work - again - so much for internationally accepted.  even called cap1 before we left - "no worries, should work fine."  nope.  

cashier tells me about several atms throughout the mall - i leave with naive hopes.  several are out of order, 1 is 100% in chinese, another displays no button for withdrawal, only balance inquiry - finally i find one that looks like it's working but when i type in the amount, it says that's too high!  so i try a lower amount until it accepts my request and produces the red (100 RMB notes are printed with red ink).  i've beat the machine and it's logic - i'll just process a second and third transaction, pay an additional $5 in fees and be all set - almost out of here.  too much foreshadowing?  yep, you guessed it, the second request didn't pan out - insufficient funds.  i know my account back home has enough money so i think maybe i tapped this machine's last 2500 yuan.  i find the last atm in the mall but get the same message: "insufficient funds."  time ticks, i try thinking creatively, and then, in desperation try the first atm again (it's been 15 minutes now, maybe it'll reset or something) - to my astonishment, my plan works - another 2500 yuan in hand (that's like $800 - feeling loaded with notes)!  so of course, i wait another 15 minutes for the "reset" - nope, that's it - dead end.  i need around 6,000 RMB and i've only got 5,000 (isn't there a subterranean homesick blues quote in there somewhere?!).

we're exhausted and the atms have beaten us down - only chance now to climb back up somewhere near sanity involves yummy food.  we leave our dinner to fate and pretty much pick the first restaurant at the base of the escalator.  they serve amazing cuisine from hong kong - cuttlefish w/ cashews and peppers, beef and noodles, and spicy green beans, sichuan-style - delicious!



afterword:

in retrospect, should've spent the extra dough and gone with the iPhone.  the lenovos are very nice androids but they would've been sweeter if the operating system was in english - something we discovered after we got home and started using them.  even when you change the settings, the OS at its core thinks you want mandarin - prompts, internet searches, etc.  arrgghhh...  so we hunt down an english speaking tech maven over the next week to implement a work around (a story in itself but i'll spare you that one).

..and i thought choosing a cell phone in the states was a hassle!