Trip to Yiwu

Yesterday Dev and I took a three-and-a-half hour train trip to Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, about two hundred miles south of Shanghai. Yiwu is the capital of China's export market. Our hotel was next door to the International Trade City, a ten-million-square-foot center with more than 30,000 stalls displaying wholesale trade samples of almost every imaginable consumer good. The Trade City, in turn, anchors a wider selection of smaller markets and stalls, plus freight companies, customs consults, and other affiliated businesses. This is the place to find Indian mehndi (henna tattoo) patterns, scissors, inflatable novelty hammers, flashlights, plastic back braces, statues of the Virgin Mary, rain coats, LED signs, push brooms, Native American handicrafts, fake flowers, and children's backpacks. Yes, and more.

We even found a chicken-shaped cooking timer I had years ago in college. I was heartbroken when it was destroyed, only to find it five years later in China. They wouldn't sell it to us, though, in quantities less than 500 pieces. We seriously considered it.

The trading centers are filled with businessmen from all over the world, including representatives from South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, India and the Middle East. After the markets close in the evening, you can find those same businessmen in one of the city's many Middle Eastern restaurants or nargileh (hookah) bars.

We also visited the night market (with four or five different tattoo stalls, for some reason). Then we spent a romantic Saturday night at the Aegean Sea Bar in the lobby of the Best Western Hotel in Yiwu, China. Classy.

I'll post our favorite photos now. For more, check out our Flickr site.