We had an "only in china" day today. Abi and I went looking for a dress for the Winter dance. Again we are very last minute....the dance is tomorrow night. With Abi being sick last week we did not have a chance to go to the fabric market. So.....we went after school to look for a dress. I remembered seeing a new dress shop near the fabric market and we thought there was a small chance we could find a dress in that shop. When we got to the shop we discovered that several other dress shops had opened in the past week. All these shops specialize in wedding dress, prom dresses, and Qipaos (Traditional Chinese dress). The first shop we went to had a couple of viable options...both needed some adjustment and none of the shop workers spoke English. The next shop we went to was a family owned business. By "family" I mean three generations including the grandfather.....7 members in all. Abi had so much service we were not sure what to do with all of it. She found a couple of dresses in this shop but again both needed some adjustments and the adjustments were too complicated to fix.....and no one spoke English. So.....on to the next shop. This one had only one worker and it took some strong convincing to allow Abi to try on the dresses.....Abi tried three dresses and settled on a red and black silk knee length dress. The only problem....the clerk would not negotiate the price and it has some small spots and a little snag. Being the desperate shopper we were......we could over look a couple of minor flaws but our conscience would not allow us to pay full price for the dress. So...we asked if she could get another dress just like the sample. This did not translate and I had to call one of my friends to translate over the phone for us. Thank goodness for friends that speak the language!!! The answer came back as.....my boss will be here in a few minutes please wait. This is code for it could be a few minutes or it could be one hour. But.....we were desperate so we waited......and waited....and waited....finally the shop owner arrived and she spoke very good English. She also brought her tailor with her. So...they fitted the dress to Abi with metal pinch clips that we use to hold papers together. They took her measurements and then said they could have a new dress made by tomorrow at 1:00. Wow!!! We just asked for a new dress... size M. We agreed to pay full price for this custom made dress....it will be about $65. This could only happen in Shanghai.

Stay tuned for the end of this saga....I will pick up the dress while Abi is in school tomorrow so she will not have an opportunity to try it on before the dance. We are keeping our fingers crossed that (A) the dress gets made in time, (B) it fits when Abi puts it on.