Beijing, continued

Location: Beijing, China

The last two days have been pretty crazy. On Monday, we were all set to go to the Great Wall, with a tour bus leaving from Tiananmen Square. However, we got there at 11:30am, and they told us that if we wanted to see both the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, the last bus leaves at 10:30am. So we decided to wait for Tuesday, and just take it easy Monday.

First, we decided to take a subway from Tiananmen Square, and get off at a random stop. We ended up in what looked to be an affluent middle class suburb, with not much to do. Still, there was a very nice and well decorated Thai restaurant nearby. The restaurant was interesting-the seats were cushioned benches, that could seat 3 on a side. The bathrooms were very weird-the urinal was one transparent plastic trough, with enough room for 4 people side by side, and there were different colored rocks on the bottom. A stream of water would wash over the rocks. I guess it truly was a "waterfall grotto".

After that, we went over to the Hongquiao, or Pearl Market:

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the inside. It looks like a regular mall-but don't let the look deceive you! Inside is one of the craziest shopping experiences you can have. It's almost as if they took the many different shops of Morocco, with their open stands and various items for sale, and put them in a normal looking mall. As we walked through the different aisles, full of knock-off watches, fabrics, Chinese chess sets, and other things, we were accosted by every shopkeeper we passed-this time even if we didn't stop to look. The difference from Morocco was that these shopkeepers were mostly young women, and they were very pushy-some would even grab you by the arm and hold on like grim death, pulling you into their shops. Every brand imaginable was being knocked off and sold here. Bargaining was also the name of the game here. I got a very nice cashmere scarf for about 175 yuan, or 25 dollars. I could have done a lot better though.

After buying the scarf, we walked over to the sneaker area. Ben dared me to check it out, and see if they had my size (I wear a size 15 sneaker). So I said fine, expecting that they wouldn't have it. We walked over, and were greeted by a very eager Chinese woman. She thrust a pair of (fake) Nikes and (fake) Timberlands in my face, and told me to choose. So I picked the Timberlands, and told her my size. I expected her to be shocked, but instead, she brought out a pair. This pair said that the size was 12.5-but they were actually bigger than that. However, when I put my foot in the shoe, my toe went all the way to the front, with some space by the heel. So I said it didn't fit, because I really had no intention of buying them. After checking the toe, both the woman and Ben saw through my little ruse though, and told me to push the foot back. I did-it was still tight, but could have worked. At this point, the woman told me that I wasn't being a fair customer (or as she put it: "You bad man! You bad man!"). We walked away with her shouting lower and lower prices behind us.

Later that night, we found a sushi restaurant and took a cab there. This sushi place had some of the freshest sushi I had ever tasted-at prices that were high for China, but still very reasonable. We had the fun of ordering from a group of waitresses that did not speak any English at all. However, we managed to do pretty well; we were able to get dishes without meat or shellfish. Satisfied with our dinner, we made our way back to the hotel, prepared to wake up early the next morning for the Great Wall.

After being in Beijing for 3 days, I have learned the following things about the city:

-Practically no one speaks English. The government is apparently trying to change this for the Olympics next year, but it has a long way to go. Hotel concierges do speak limited English, and if you get them to translate an address for you into Chinese, you will do pretty well with cab drivers.

-The city is huge. You can't really walk from one place to the next, and the subway system is not big enough to serve the city yet. Buses are very confusing, but luckily, cabs are fairly cheap. We took cabs the whole time here. You don't tip the cabs either.

-There is considerable pollution in the sky. Not one day did I see blue-there was a constant haze over the city.

-When you walk into a restaurant, you will be seated, and a waitress will wait by the table while you look at the menu (I imagine that this is true in all of China). It was actually a little unnerving, and when we tried to tell them we needed more time, we usually got into a 5 minute discussion because of the language barrier. Best to just take your time and let her stand there.

Post on the Great Wall coming up...