Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Today is our last day in Beijing so we decided to visit some markets to do some shopping before heading to Hong Kong.  We were able to visit two markets in Beijing and it was quite the experience.  Hayward really enjoyed the bargaining process.  The salespeople knew several English words like: "Hello", "Cheap price for you", "What price good for you", "How much you pay", "1st Customer today", "Ok", "Thank you", and "Bye Bye".  Sometimes they were very aggressive, even grabbing my arm at one point and not letting go.  I was quite frustrated and upset with how I was treated.  We were able to get many good deals and fabulous treasures.  We purchased so much that we needed to buy an additional small suitcase for a cheap price of course!  

We had lunch at a restaurant in the 1st market we visited.  It was on the top floor and we had a wonderful booth seat along the window with an amazing view of the city.  The buffett had everything you could imagine and the price included beer and wine.  Fantastic!  I also enjoyed the best dessert I've had thus far on the trip.  It was a little round chocolate ball with colored sprinkles.  It was super soft and very yummy.

After our shopping excursion we went back to the hotel to drop off our purchases. We grabbed a taxi to take us to McDonald's for a quick bite to eat and then we headed to the other side of town to see the Chinese Acrobat show.  The show was awesome.  There were so many people in the performance.  It was very different than I imagined.  I thought there would be a great deal of gymnastics to music however it was more of a performance with some very dare devil like tricks.  It was breathtaking and nerve wracking.  Amazingly entertaining!!

Tomorrow we fly to Hong Kong!

Jaime & Hayward