Practice Makes Perfect

My spoken Mandarin skills are weak, so I try to practice as much as I can with shop clerks, taxi drivers et al using my limited vocabulary. Sometimes I learn something interesting, like today. On my way to The Place this afternoon, Purple Passion's signage caught my attention. This was the first sex shop I've seen in China. Practicing my conversational skills in there has got to be more interesting than the "Where are you from? You're American?! You look Chinese. You're from New York? Where are you parents from? How old are you? Why are you in Beijing?" interrogation I've received from almost every taxi driver who has driven me anywhere in this city.

My conversation with the salesclerk translated from Mandarin:

"Hello! This store is very cool," I said gesturing to the wall display of dildos.
"Hello! Thank you," responded the salesperson.
"Do many Americans come to this store to buy things?"
"Yes, Americans come here."
"I'm American. Please tell me, do many Chinese come to this place to buy things?"
Salesperson starts laughing, "Chinese and American come here to buy things. A little more Chinese than Americans."
Running out of vocabulary words, I blurted out "Thanks. Bye!"

While thrilled to throw the word "cool" in my conversation (I just learned that word last Friday), I still need to beef up my knowledge of slang. While studying chinaSMACK exclusively will give me a potty-mouth, I need to balance that with some nice, positive vocab words. If you know of a source online or off, please let me know.