Today during our two hour lunch break, Bo and I went to the shoe repair guy outside of the school’s gate to see if it was possible to fix the bottom of Bo’s shoes.  His soles were looking pretty worn.  When we got there, another woman was getting her boots done, so we had to wait.   I thought it would be a good idea to ask how much it was because there would be no point in waiting if he quoted us some ridiculous price.  When I asked him, he paused for a moment as though he were thinking of a price.  The woman waiting on her boots to be finished perked up and said something to the man.  He looked at her and said a few more things and then she turned back to us and said 2.5 in English.  This sorta surprised me.  I hadn’t expected either one of them to speak English and it was cheaper than I thought it would be.  2.5 yuan is like .37  cents.  Do you have any idea how much it costs to repair soles in the US?  Not .37 cents.   We decided to wait.

It didn’t take the guy long at all to finish the woman’s boots and then it was Bo’s turn.  He sat down on the little stool the guy had provided and took off his shoes.  The guy took them and went straight to work.  In a few short minutes, the guy had resurfaced the worn places on the shoe and handed them back to Bo.  We asked him one more time how much it was just to make sure.  For a second, I thought he meant 2.5 yuan for each shoe, and that would have been fine, but he repeated his earlier statement.  Bo slipped on his shoes and stood up to test them out.  He said that they felt great and that maybe he should bring all his shoes to get fixed in China.  Yep, that is my plan, too.