"Lady, lady! You want purse?"

We arrived in Beijing and were taken to the hotel by a guy that leads a tour group.  It is a very nice hotel called Qian Yuan and I think we get a discount again because of Jason's connections.  The room that Beibei and I share has 2 beds, 2 chairs with a table for a sitting area, a desk, a TV, an entire kitchen (with fridge, freezer, microwave, sink, stove, cupboards), a kitchen table area, and a large bathroom.  A lot of the bathroom is see-through so that's weird.  Jason has some friends here so one of them took us to a restaurant for lunch.  It served many kinds of food so I had pizza!  There was also french bread and Diet Coke!

Crowded Shopping Center

The guy drove us to a shopping area (Silk Water Street I think) after we stopped by a mechanic to fix his busted tire.  The building for this shopping place was very big and each floor had a different specialty.  I think it was about 6 floors.  There were tons of small areas each selling similar things so you could find a good price.  It was insanely crowded.  You couldn't take a step without running into someone.  They were selling a lot of Coach bags (probably fake though) so I figured I'd get one rather than spending hundreds of dollars in the U.S. for one (not that I would spend that in the US).  The price that they give you is whatever they fell like telling you at the moment.  The girl I ended up buying from originally told me over 1000 yen.  Thankfully I had Jason and his friend to tell me what I should pay.  We ended up bargaining and I only paid 80 yen.  I'm sure they rip off lots of people.  They really target ignorant foreigners like me.  Rather than 1000 yen I only paid 80, a little over 10 U.S. dollars.  They are very pushy here.  I barely walk past someone and I hear, "Lady, you want purse or wallet?  Lady, very cheap and very beautiful!"  If you so much as walk in their area, they are in your face asking which one you want.  If you decline the offer they block your way out and grab your arm.  When you walk out, they grab your arm and try to drag you back trying to bargain.  It feels strange at first but I got used to it.  I also got some postcards there: 2 packs of them for 20 yen.

Shopping Center

This evening we went to dinner with 3 people that live 2 hours form Beijing.  Beibei, San, and Sineerat knew them from when they visited Kansas for several months.  I actually liked the sweet and sour beef.  The salad/vegetable thing with vinegar type sauce was pretty good too.  I didn't care for the fish or soup or peking duck or bean paste dessert (texture of baked potato) or pork meatball.  The Asian pear was ok and so was the other dessert (crispy sesame seed wrap with purple bean paste stuff inside).  This morning I tried dried shredded pork.  It looks like fuzzy torn up cardboard.  I also had sticky rice with bean paste that had been wrapped in some kind of leaf.  I had watermelon juice with dinner.

Beijing

Beijing is hard to see very far.  There is a lot of pollution and it is a little hazy anyways.  There are a lot more westerners here so I'm not stared at nearly as much.

Every time I learn more Chinese, Beibei tries to show me off.  At the party type thing last night, I had to count to ten and say a bunch of stuff in front of all those Chinese people.  I've had to do stuff like that several times! :-)

Pizza in Beijing!