Five ladies piled into a car and had the driver take us 1 hour and 10 minutes to Suzhou to the pearl market. It was two buildings that have a variety of shops inside. In the middle are the stands that have strands of pearls laid out for your to look at or touch, there are some things in their cases but mostly just the pearls. There are yellow, pink, white, black pearls.....they have flat pearls which are cheaper for bracelets and earrings, then they have classic round pearls and then they have rice pearls which you can see are shaped like rice and can be found in white or pink usually. It was kind of neat to just see all these strands of pearls, all different colors. The black pearls here are white pearls that are injected with ink, so it is a natural pearl but the color isn't natural. As we walked around, 5 foreign women we had many people asking us to look at their shop, we stayed to the outside in the first building where there are more jewelry stores to view the pearls, you can find all different kids, they have pendants, broaches, necklaces, earrings, bracelets etc. After we all bought what we wanted from the first building we moved on to the second building...
The title is the Suzhou Pearl and Gem market but i have to say there were not many gems, it was a LOT O' PEARLS!!! It was a bit overwhelming to see all the choices, there is a variety of prices and a tip from a friend said to offer then 1/3 the price they tell you and negotiate! I got some amazing deals, and mind you these are real pearls! They are good quality and who doesn't love a good deal!Everything I purchased a single black pearl with matching earrings for $15 for myself and a pair of pink round pearl earrings for $20. I got a strand of rice pearls and got to choose which strand i liked, then she took the strand off the bunch and hand strung the pearls for me, tying a knot between every pearl and adding a clasp on in about 5 minutes or less. She was so fast! It was fun to watch her make me a necklace right then and there. In the other building we were able to pick the pearls and then they made them into earrings and bracelets for us while we waited. The second building was bigger and had many more jewelry shops where they wanted to rip you off because it was a nice shop and we were foreigners, so we shopped the stands in the middle and found some friendly ladies that were willing to help us and willing to negotiate! It was a really fun time to go but it was sort of in the middle of no where. There wasn't a restaurant or shop nearby, luckily on of the ladies packed us some yummy sandwiches and we ate lunch on our drive back home after 3 hours of PEARL shopping!  |
| I love pearls! |
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