Most Expensive Day So Far

It was an expensive day today because we went to the Olympics Store so I could get souvenirs for everyone back at home.

The Olympics Store is so weird, the way it's set up. You find what you want to buy, let's say a set of chopsticks with these little adorable marketing tools on them.
You find the chopsticks, then instead of just taking them and moving on, you have to find a worker. The worker then writes down what you want on a receipt-type slip with three duplicate copies. Then they take it away from you. It's gone. You can't have it.

Then, once you've done this with all of the items you want (which, in my case, was quite a lot) you then take all of these slips of paper to the cashier. The cashier adds it all up, you pay and then she gives you one of the duplicates for each item you purchased. Then, you have to go back to every "station" you bought something from and get your stuff. It's three times longer than it has to be. But, along with being par for the course for China (we've seen a lot of things that could be done more efficiently) I guess it's the best way to prevent theft.

By the way, those characters are the Friendlies, the official mascots of the games. Beibei, Jinging and all the others. If you take the first half of their names and put them together in the order they're displayed, it spells out, "Beijing Welcomes You". Neat-o indeed.