"No talking..No Talking..No Talking"

Those words will forever make me laugh!!! Saturday was such a great day. Jaime came to town and was staying with me and so we decided we wanted to go to NYC for the day. We invited Josh and Reid to come along...and thought we would do some shopping, get some food..and see a show. You know, just a typical day in the Big Apple...


Well...we got to the city and headed to the TKTS booth. Reid and Josh were kind enough to stand in line and get the tickets (thanks again guys!) while Jaime and I got a head start on some shopping. Jaime wanted to get some knock off purses...so what better place to go than Chinatown, right? Right. So...we took the subway down to the famous Canal street and started looking around. We went into a couple of back rooms and saw a couple of nice bags, but nothing that Jaime and I really wanted and still hadn't gotten anything by the time the boys met back up with us.

So, we continued our way down the street with several offers to look at "coach, Prada, Gucci" bags...One guy stopped us and asked us if we were interested and Jaime said "sure." He started walking down the street and since I've followed people before (See my blog entry from April "NY Sweat Shops"), I asked him how far it was. "Just one block" he said. So we followed him. He walked us for a bit and then just handed us off to a small Chinese lady that walked us down another street. We stopped at one of those big, sketchy white vans...she opened the doors and said "Get in". So Jaime and I started to get in...and she said (in her very thick accent) "All of you!" So ALL four of us, plus the Chinese lady all climbed into the back of this white van....she shut (and apparently locked) the doors! A van similar to this (I pulled this pic off the Internet)...but you need to envision it in the middle of dirty NYC Chinatown...



Oh how I wish I had a picture to show you what it was like in the back of that van which was full of knock of purses. Here we all are sitting on tiny little stools or blocks of some sort in the back of this dark (the couple of windows it had were covered) van...and this lady starts pulling out every Channel bag in her van! Ha! I was kinda loving it b/c I knew I could add it to my random experiences in New York...but it gets better. Oh...So much better!

After looking at her selection of purses, we decided that they just weren't that great and decided to leave....She then radioed someone (probably the guy that handed us off to her)...She was talking in Chinese so we didn't understand anything...but then all of a sudden she says (Remember...everything is in a VERY thick Chinese accent) "No talking, No talking" and puts her hands together like she is praying and starts chanting something in Chinese and rocking back and forth....! It was so weird and so random...and we didn't know what to do! We just kind of sat there trying not to laugh! And if we would start to make any noise she would wave her hands at us and just keep saying "No talking, no talking..No talking" and keep chanting.

At first I thought she just wanted to pray really quick before we left to make sure she didn't get in trouble or something....I really didn't know what was going on...until she said again "No talking...Police outside...Please..no Talking.." Hmm..so apparently the cops were outside. We just kind of sat there for a minute and then all of a sudden Josh lost his patience (a lot faster than I thought he would) and said he was leaving (which is when he realized the door was locked)...She grabbed him and stopped him and just kept pleading with us. So we kept sitting there and she kept chanting and telling us "No talking, No talking." Josh kept saying he was going to leave so she offered him an ugly wallet (which he didn't want at all). ha ha.

I didn't have a problem waiting a few minutes. I figured that maybe the cops were just in the area, walking by or something. And I didn't really want this poor lady to get deported or whatever because we went to look at her purses. You could tell she was scared for her life. I felt really bad for her.

Josh tried to look out the window and he said he didn't see any cops...but she kept saying "jacket like you, jacket like you" implying they are undercover. She kept saying "One minute, One minute" in between all the "No talking" and chanting. But 1 minute turned into a lot more minutes....and then all of a sudden there was banging on the van door and someone pulling on the door handle trying to get in. They banged on every single door and window all around the van. And we just sat there...not really knowing what to do.

We waited a couple more minutes and hoped they would just go away...but then again there was more banging. That's when it was obvious that this cop or whoever knew we were in there! And he wasn't going anywhere! So - finally we told her we had to go...we couldn't wait. She asked to call her husband...so we waited for her to do that. And then Josh opened the door with this Chinese women trying to stop him and jumped out. She tried to close the door and turn off the lights...but the cop opened the doors...and heard me say something like "Can we just get out of here?" and the cop said "Yeah - she told you, you couldn't leave?"...and not really wanting to get involved with anything we just kinda scurried away. ah ha ha ha ha ha ha........

Who would have thought!?!!! :) It was GREAT! And would I go back and do it all over again knowing what would happen...Yeah - probably. Except for the part where the lady gets caught...Cause I felt really bad about that. Who knows what happened to her... We basically helped sent a lady to jail that night.

Luckily we got out of the van in time to get some food before the show. We ate at Lombardi's Pizza in little Italy and then we made our way back up to midtown to see Hairspray.

Reid kinda looks like he could use some hairspray himself in this pic..ha ha. :)

In the theater just waiting for the show to start...

It was a good night. I really enjoyed Hairspray. It's a fun musical...really upbeat. And we laughed the whole night about our crazy van experience! I don't think anyone but us will really understand just how great that story is... oh..Good times!