Beijing: Day 3 and Day 4

We woke up and met in the lobby of the hotel at 9 am. Some of us got breakfast at McDonald's while some us at BreadTalk. It wasn't a bad breakfast! After that, we headed to a store which had fake branded purses, shoes, belts, tshirts etc. on one floor, cheap pearls on the next and real expensive pearls on the next 2 floors. You, had to use super bargaining powers here and I was ready. I saw a pearl bracelet I liked and worked the priced won from 50 RMB to 10 RMB. I also got them to make it smaller so that it would fit me! After that, I decided to go help out a friend who was buying a couple of necklaces and earrings from a person named Sally. Oh, we bargained real hard with her and made her give us an amazing discount by basically convincing her that we'd send 25,000 students from the University of Michigan to her. To support our case a little, we kept bringing over one by one different members of our group who wanted to buy pearls. It was a fun bargain.

The sellers on the floor below where they sold purses were vicious. I had a huge red purse with me and this woman just grabs my arm asking me if I want to buy a purse while looking at the purse that I was holding. I didn't know how to make it more obvious that I didn't want a purse!

Following the Pearl Market, we went to a famous toy market which had stalls that sold each and every type of toy. They had many game consoles and accessories for them. I bought a Wii game for my brother from there.

After this, we made our way to the Temple of Heaven where one of our friends, Andrew Copp, decides to go daredevil on us and tries to jump with both legs onto a really high ledge. He bangs his shin onto the ledge and ends up with a giant gaping bruise. He was okay, but he and 3 others went to the hospital where he got 2 stitches and a tetanus shot. It was a relief that he was smiling through all that.

The last tourist activity of the evening was visiting this really old street that had been preserved and that had many little shops on it. The perfect word to describe the street is "quaint". The shops and the foods available were really really interesting. Too bad my stomach wasn't feeling too well otherwise I would have tried something. After that, 6 of us tried to get taxis back to the hotel so we could get ready for dinner. The first 3 easily got a taxi but when it was our turn we got turned down by 6 - 7 taxi drivers. Did I mention that it was a really really hot day?Only one of the 3 people spoke some limited Chinese so we tried finding a metro stop by asking directions but that didn't work. I think we tried for around an hour after which we found this very kind girl who walked quite a distance with us to lead us to the metro station. We were so grateful to her. We finally got back and got ready for dinner. Btw, this dinner was one of the best dinners of my life!

We reached this really nice area with expensive stores and went into the Hibachi restaurant where we had made reservations for 12 people. They mixed up our reservations and told us there was only room for 4. Fortunately, we had a Mandarin speaker with us who gave them a piece of his mind which fixed all the problems and also got the staff to give us "Sorry" drinks! We were so happy!

HIBACHI GRILL

This part of the day was SO great that it requires it's own section. This was an All you can eat- All you can drink for 200 RMB ( ~$30) restaurant! You could get whatever you wanted off the menu and the Chef would make it right there in front of you. The food was AMAZING! There was a bit of EVERYTHING and everything tasted marvellous! Some of us got hot Sake which was an interesting drink. Even without the drinks, everyone's mood instantly got much better ! I think we ate continuously for 2 hours. YUM! Some members of my family would have LOVED this place (right Papa, Bhaiya and Gaurav?)

Now to burn off a small fraction of the calories that we had consumed, we went out dancing! It was a very very fun night!

The Chef

Hibachi Grill

The next day we went to an art district which was very interesting. There were many buildings in which different artists displayed their work. We walked around there for a couple of hours and then headed back to the old street where we were the previous day.

One of the art exhibitions

For dinner, we had the famous Beijing duck and then packed up and left for the airport for our flight back to Shanghai. The airport wasn't crowded at all and security check took 5 minutes. The boarding process was very smooth and the plane took off on time. They served a good snack and drinks on this 1.5 hour flight! I was super impressed with the whole process. We got back to campus around 1.30am, woke up our ayees and went straight to bed!

This weekend was one of the most satisfying and exhilarating weekends I've ever had! I'm glad I went and I had a great time with all the people who came to Beijing!

Nayana