Our first day in Beijing was pretty nice.
The first thing we did when we left the hotel was to go to the pearl market. It’s building that houses many different vendors. Each floor seems to have a theme, the first floor was electronics, the second had clothing, and the third was the pearl market. Not sure what was on the 4th, we didn’t go there. Mom bought some pearls at amazingly good prices. The shop keepers were relentless, I wandered around while mom and Rick figured out what she wanted and got the price they wanted. I walked by what must have been 250 shops, every one wanted me to come in or browse. Every one wanted me to buy pearls. I’m starting to understand why the Chinese have done so well in business, they will not let up…
Anyway, we then went to a silk place. They have been around for a long long time. At least part of it is state run, but it wasn’t clear if they meant the entire thing or just the silk farming part. Anyway, they had some really nice rugs (mom really wanted one, it would have been around 4k delivered, but she was sensible and got out) and bedding. I am tempted to get one or more of their silk stuffed quilts. The biggest and heaviest ones were around 75 bucks. They are plain comforters stuffed with silk. We got a really good explanation/sales pitch. He was good enough that I am seriously thinking about getting one. They had lots of rolls of fabric, a tailor, and some really beautiful bedding. I’m not so interested in having fancy silk sheets, but they do look good. They also had some really interesting bedding made from bamboo fibers. It is supposed to be very breathable and durable, but I couldn’t find much other than their display. It felt like a really high grade of cotton. Upstairs they had a bunch of clothes. Most of it was for women of course. The stuff for the guys wasn’t really to my tastes for the most part. I’m not a big fan of wearing the really shiny type of silk. I do like the rougher stuff, but I didn’t see much available there. Both at this silk place and the stuff at the “pearl” place, they seemed to be concerned with price mostly. The clothes were not especially nice in my opinion, but they were very reasonably priced for nice silk. The electronics were mostly junk. I tried out some binoculars, and while they were pretty inexpensive, they really weren’t worth buying. I want to find a place that sells decent stuff, I’m sure that it will still be cheaper than at home.
We then went walking around a series of lakes downtown. Before we went sightseeing, lunch was necessary. The menu was illustrated with pictures thank God. Some things might have sounded OK with the text, but when you saw the picture you ruled it out pretty quickly. A couple of bird dishes were shown that still had the head attached. There were also many dishes that were made of liver, duck webbing, fish heads, cartilage, etc. I wondered where the good parts of the animals had gone and why the restaurant was stuck with the leftovers… I had a chicken dish. The cuts were still on the bone, and they weren’t very good cuts. But the sauce they were in was pretty amazing. There were two whole star anise in there, big hunks of garlic, some sort of stick spice that I couldn’t identify and more. Mom and Rick had a chicken with fruit dish that was very good, wish I had ordered that too…
We went walking around the lakes which have become the new bar area. Everywhere we went (around 3ish) people were trying to get us into their place. We also had to put up with an endless barrage of rickshaw drivers (they use bikes now instead of being pulled by hand). It seems as being short with them and downright rude was the only way to get them to shut up. Like I said, they are relentless when it comes to looking for business. I heard lots of traditional Chinese music like 50 cent, Emenim, the cure, and Bonnie Rait blaring out of the bars… It really looks like the place to be if you like to drink and hang out.
Most of Beijing looks a lot like Arlington, low buildings, lots of shops, etc. There are some differences of course. This place has huge bike lanes, the lane is wider than a regular car lane back home. The main streets are 4 lanes both ways, they can handle a lot of traffic. Many of the busses are electric and run off of suspended wires. Almost all of the vehicles are newish. Our guide explained that people have only really been able to afford cars starting with the last 10 years or so. He said that there are around 3 million cars here with a population upwards of 15 million. That’s not bad actually, but there is a lot of smog. Today was overcast, but the place was incredibly smoggy, mom and Rick went running in the morning and they say they feel like they smoked a pack of cigarettes. Some pictures are up, I mostly took shots around the park we went to, I’ll try to take more general street scenes in the next couple of days.