Saturday was our last day in Beijing, and we decided to go back into downtown to see the Temple of Heaven. This was another spectacular complex with temples, long procession aisles, and a burial mound for making sacrifices to the gods. There was a whispering wall, too, just like St. Paul’s except this one was outside. One of the best features of the Temple of Heaven, however, is the expansive grounds with rows and rows of cedar trees planted by various dignitaries and historical figures of importance throughout the centuries. The lush green grass and dirt pathways provide a very nice area for anyone to come to enjoy an afternoon or a picnic, for only RMB 15 (about US $2), which is a ticket just for entrance to the park.This time we got a more traditional Chinese lunch than our first day spent in Beijing, though the restaurant staff decided to bring us the potato dish we ordered, even though they didn’t have any more potatoes. I guess they thought that their substitution of Chinese broccoli would suffice.
The afternoon was spent navigating the 5 stories of booths in the large Silk Street Market. I brushed up on my bartering skills (and my math skills – it’s not easy dividing by 7.6 to get the US $ equivalent of the prices they were asking for). Admittedly, I could have done better at bargaining, but oh well. This was all done using calculator screens and involved many merchants running after us, sometimes for quite a distance down an aisle. One woman in the Dolce & Gabbana section, who was confounded as to why I wasn’t about to pay US $100 for a t-shirt, chased after me outside her section and grabbed my arm, trying to pull me back in. Crazy.
We left successful: I had a new red necklace (a long-awaited purchase), Victoria Beckham jeans, knock-off Gucci sunglasses, and a gift for Bryce. Probably the best purchase was made by my sister, who walked out with a new 12 megapixel lightweight digital camera, 2GB memory stick and leather camera case for US $250. The thing takes pictures with no delay whatsoever. I’m a bit jealous.
It was nice being in the company of so many English-speaking Chinese at the markets, though it was rather clear that the merchants’ vocabulary consisted primarily of ‘Hello!’, ‘Okay!’, ‘Best price!’, ‘pretty girl’, ‘just for you’ and 'very good quality'.
We navigated the Beijing subway system to get as close to our hotel as we could before hailing a cab, but still didn’t make it back in time to join the bus hired by the conference to take members and guests to dinner in downtown Beijing. We would have just stayed downtown to meet them if it weren’t for our inappropriate attire. So our last dinner was the uneventful hotel buffet, that consisted of many leftovers from the ‘gala’ the night before.
1 comment:
This is a very biased comment. Not racist,but biased.
Not sure how much you bartered your merchandise at the Silk Market for, but chance are, you still got jipped. As in, you still over-paid. I would explain to you more, but that's only if your interested.
Post a Comment