Trip Report, 8 days in Beijing

OVERVIEW

I went to Beijing in June for a conference and spent an additional few days sightseeing after the conference ended, for a total of 8 days. It was my first trip to China. I arrived on Saturday, went to the conference Sunday through Tuesday, and left on Saturday. The conference was at Tsinghua University, in the northwest part of the city, and I stayed at the Unisplendour International Center hotel. I stayed there the whole week, though in retrospect I wish I had switched to a more convenient hotel downtown after the conference ended.

A student of mine, Y, also attended the conference. He is from Shanghai and was home visiting his family, then flew to Beijing for the conference and back to Shanghai on Wednesday. While in Beijing, he helped me navigate, shop, eat, etc. On Thursday I was shown around by a former student, X, and her husband, L, who are from Beijing. Friday and Saturday I was on my own.

Before the trip, I was most excited about the food, and you%26#39;ll notice a little food obsession below. I had read a lot about different kinds of food available in Beijing and was excited to try them all. I was particularly excited about easy street food like dumplings, buns, kabobs, and so on. As you%26#39;ll see below, I ate some mediocre food at the conference, and chickened out a lot when I was on my own--because of language, not squeamishness.

SATURDAY

I took United%26#39;s relatively new non-stop flight from Dulles to Beijing, after connecting from my home airport. The flight is about 13 1/2 hours long. Fortunately I had an aisle seat in the bulkhead, a wall in front of me, which offered a little more legroom than usual. I barely slept on the plane, which is typical for me.

We landed a little early at around 1:30, and immigration/customs/bag claim was no problem. My student Y met me just outside customs as planned, I changed a little money, and we got in a taxi to the hotel.

So far Beijing seems like any other huge city, except that I can%26#39;t read any of the signs. I haven%26#39;t seen any of the historic areas yet, so the only thing that distinguishes it, after being here only briefly, is the traffic. Traffic is very heavy, but more than that, the drivers, cyclists, moped drivers, pedicabbies, and pedestrians are all, every one of them, insane. People cut through lanes of heavy traffic to make turns or pull over, pedestrians cross intersections at all angles and at varying speeds. There is often no discernible correlation between red and green lights and what sectors of traffic are actually moving. The give-and-take that ensues when one car wants to merge into another%26#39;s lane lasts much longer than in the U.S., with the result being that the cars are millimeters apart before one of them gives up the game of chicken. All of this would be terrifying if traffic were moving more than 6 miles an hour, which it generally isn%26#39;t.

So we made it to the hotel and checked in, with Y doing all the talking since the front desk staff has limited English. The hotel itself is nicer than I expected. Y and I had both heard pretty mediocre things from friends and on-line, but I was pleasantly surprised. The lobby tries a little too hard to look mod but is comfortable and attractive. The room is quite nice, reasonably spacious, prettily decorated, and with a huge flat-screen TV that I%26#39;ll probably never use. The bed leaves something to be desired, as the mattress is possibly made of lead. The room has hi-speed internet access for RMB20 or $2.50/day.

That evening, Y asked a friend to recommend a place for dinner near the hotel, and we wound up at the food court in a brand new shopping mall. This sounds terrible but I really didn%26#39;t mind, since it was Chinese food rather than Taco Bell and TCBY.

Before describing the food, let me start with the mall. It%26#39;s an electronics mall with hundreds of stores selling various computers, electronics, and accessories. There are two whole floors earmarked as the ';DIY'; section--i.e., where you buy individual components of a computer and then assemble it yourself. Apparently DIY is quite a noble endeavor in China. Each store or booth is manned by two or three people, all under 25, all chatting with each other, most either texting or playing video games on the computers for sale. It makes for a weirdly commercial, weirdly social environment.

The food court is on the fifth floor, and since it%26#39;s new, only about half the restaurants were open. First Y bought us some bubble teas. Mine was a little odd--sort of buttery-flavored--but Y couldn%26#39;t translate the flavor for me--it turns out that his English food vocabulary is rather poor, which was a theme for the evening.

We got food from a place where you pick out ingredients from a kind of salad bar, and then they boil them in a spicy broth and serve it with noodles--sort of like a DIY dinner. Y picked out my ingredients--two kinds of mushrooms (wood-ear? oyster?), krab stick, baby bok choi, purple cabbage, and something Y described as ';fish ball'; but looked like pigs in blankets. Each comes on a skewer, so you%26#39;re getting 4 to 6 pieces of each. Once my dish was cooked and assembled, they ladled on some toppings: pureed garlic, some kind of spicy paste, some kind of dry spice mixture, and some kind of brown liquid that Y again couldn%26#39;t translate but that tasted like sesame.

All in all, the dish was quite good. All the spicy, sweet, salty stuff mixed nicely together. The veggies were tender but crunchy. The fish ball was surprisingly good--the outer ';blanket'; part was indeed some kind of dough, the inner ';pig'; part was ground fish, and the whole thing was pretty spicy. Y%26#39;s bowl had similar ingredients, and the two together cost RMB20--$2.50. I saw this kind of restaurant several times during my trip, and someone later told me it%26#39;s called ';ma la tang.'; Each of those three words is translated in English as ';hot,'; but in Chinese they mean different kinds of hot--one referring to temperature, two to spice.

Y finished his soup in about 4 seconds, and while I was finishing he said he%26#39;d go scouting for more food, even though I was already feeling pretty stuffed. He came back with a big cauldron of broth with wide, flat noodles, roast pork (';Hong Kong-style,'; he said, though as far as I can tell that just means ';a little on the chewy side';), some greens, and something that Y called bamboo but that looked and tasted like picked green beans to me--let%26#39;s split the difference and call it pickled bamboo. You serve yourself from the communal cauldron into little bowls. We ate about half of it and then gave up, full. All told, we spent less than $10 for dinner for two, a disproportionate amount of which was accounted for by the bubble tea.

Across the street from the mega e-mall was a Carrefour, the French mega-market, and we decided to go in since we both wanted to get some bottled water. It took us a while to find the entrance, which led down a very slow moving walkway. (The sign on it said, ';Stair steep, don%26#39;t crowded! Please warning.';) We got a shopping cart and followed the crowd up another very slow moving walkway, only to find ourselves back on the outside. So we ditched the cart and headed back inside, discovering that Carrefour is all the way at the other end of a huge, western-style mall. I didn%26#39;t recognize many of the store names, but all the stores looked familiar nevertheless. Anyway, we made it to Carrefour and spent another 10 minutes trying to find the water, then another 10 minutes trying to find the checkout. All in all it probably took us 40 minutes to buy $3 worth of water. Apparently Saturday nights are big grocery-shopping nights, so it was packed. The employees are contributing to the commotion, because as they%26#39;re restocking the shelves, they%26#39;re shouting out, hawking the wares. It was something I%26#39;ve never seen in a supermarket before.

I really liked the fact that I was in the real city tonight, eating and shopping among people who live here, rather than in a tourist area. On the other hand, I was totally helpless, and totally dependent on Y. I saw literally not a single other western-looking person and virtually no signs in English. I%26#39;ve never traveled somewhere where I can%26#39;t make out a single scrap of the language. It was a strange, disconcerting feeling.

SUNDAY

Today was the first conference day, so I saw very little of Beijing. A quick overview of today%26#39;s food: There%26#39;s complimentary breakfast at the hotel, buffet style. It%26#39;s an odd mix of western and eastern cuisines--I guess it%26#39;s typical for Chinese hotel breakfast buffets. There was cold cereal, omelets made to order, an approximation of French toast, and some greasy bacon, and then congee (rice porridge), pork buns (doughy balls filled with minced pork), boiled beans (something like lima beans, but bigger and brown), fried rice, braised bok choi, stir-fried veggies, and so on. It seemed a little weird to have savory dishes like that at breakfast, but I guess it%26#39;s no weirder than having roast beef and peel-n-eat shrimp at American brunches (except that this was 7:30 AM).

Anyway, I decided have a little of both (eastern and western). I had really been looking forward to eating buns (pork and otherwise), and the pork bun was OK but not great. The beans were garlicky and surprisingly satisfying. The western stuff was so-so. Thankfully they have coffee and it%26#39;s passable. At the end Y suggested that I try some soy milk, which is served hot and you eat from a bowl with a soup spoon. It was similar to other soy milk I%26#39;ve had--nutty and not sweetened--and not my favorite breakfast item. Later in the week I had breakfast with a guy from the conference, Chinese but living in California now, and he told me hot soy milk was a big part of his breakfasts as a child, and that the nostalgia makes it so he can%26#39;t stay away from it.

The conference lunch was served at the hotel, too, since it%26#39;s only a few minutes%26#39; walk from Tsinghua University, where the conference is held. Buffet style again, with a ton of items. I had little bits of many dishes: grilled beef tenderloin that was nicely flavored with rosemary, but tough; some chicken curry that was quite dry; more braised bok choi; fried pork that was limp and chewy; a veggie bun that was tastier than this morning%26#39;s pork bun; some kind of spicy cold noodle salad; and some cherry tomatoes mislabeled as ';cheery'; tomatoes. All in all it was not a great lunch. They serve beer and soda only, so I drank soda since my conference presentation would be in a few hours.

In the evening there was a light dinner reception--another buffet, more unexciting food. Spring rolls, chicken satay, salads, potato croquettes, rice pilaf with beef. I tried one of the local mass-produced beers, which tasted like Bud, only not as flavorful.

MONDAY

Breakfast today was much like yesterday%26#39;s, with an assortment of western and eastern items. Today%26#39;s bun was filled with sweet custard, which was very nice. My favorite item, though, was the _zongzi_, which is sticky rice wrapped around a fig filling, wrapped up in a bamboo leaf in a little pyramid shape, tied, and steamed. Unwrapping the thing is an experience in itself, but it%26#39;s worth the ordeal, since the insides are sweet and chewy and yummy. Apparently they are traditional for the Dragon Boat Festival, which happens to be this week. According to my companion (supplemented by Wikipedia), the legend is that, a few hundred years BC, a famous poet drowned himself in the river in protest over some political/military events, and the people threw zongzi in after him to keep the fish from eating his body. (If I were a fish, I%26#39;d eat zongzi instead, for sure.)

Lunch was about as big a letdown as you can imagine. It was the conference%26#39;s business lunch and was catered by...Subway. Not what I came to China for.

Tonight%26#39;s dinner was the big conference banquet. We boarded buses that took us to the Summer Palace, an opulent complex of palaces, temples, etc., where the emperors and empresses used to summer (I might be making up a few details here). We were aggressively approached by folks hawking postcards, ';Gucci bag,'; and some kind of bird puppet that made an incredibly annoying squeaking sound. It%26#39;s about a 15-minute walk from the parking area to the site of our dinner. The grounds seemed to be a mixture of palace, residential buildings, bodegas, and tourist shops. Many of the buildings are set along a huge man-made lake, which was quite picturesque, or would have been if it weren%26#39;t for the haze. The air quality here is really bad, and today was maybe the worst day so far, exacerbated by the humidity. There%26#39;s a thick yellow fog, and visibility is poor. (To be fair, it was also getting dark.)

Dinner was at the Imperial Ting Li Guan Restaurant in a part of the Summer Palace called the Hall for Listening to Orioles. The restaurant is quite large and has a number of sections. Our banquet was in an open-air courtyard with a pavilion under which we saw a variety show of Chinese music, Beijing opera, magic, and acrobatics.

According to the brochure, Ting Li Guan ';is a %26#39;National Super-Class Restaurant of Chinese Traditional Trademark%26#39; and a famous restaurant of Chinese medicated diet.'; Food was served family style, with big dishes laid out on a lazy Susan, from which one serves oneself using chopsticks. There was a menu on the table, printed in English and Chinese, but it was very difficult for us to match up the items on the menu with the items in front of us, even for the Chinese-speakers at the table, and even for the waitstaff, when asked. I suspect the menu is somewhat flexible and the chefs do not feel obligated to stick to the printed menu. Here are the items listed on the menu:

* Cold dishes [these were numerous and included mushrooms, sliced pork, chopped chicken, steamed corn buns, and others I%26#39;m forgetting]

* Prawn ball and day scallops [I don%26#39;t think we actually got this; the closest was steamed broccoli with some little seafood item that would pass for ';prawn ball';]

* Delicious and crispy fried mutton tendon and bone [there was indeed some kind of mutton-like item, but it was roasted, not fried; chewy, not crispy; tendon- and boneless; and tasty, but not delicious; it also, for all I know, wasn%26#39;t even mutton]

* Steamed mandarin fish [whole fish, skinned, from which you took pieces from the filet; it was bland]

* Fried potherb mustard [nothing resembled fried potherb mustard, but then again I wouldn%26#39;t know what potherb mustard looks or tastes like]

* Mushroom soup [gelatinous and bland]

* Chicken and nuts [basically what we%26#39;d know as kung pao chicken, except more bland]

* Bamboo and venison [one item had an unidentified meat that could have been venison but tasted more like beef; and it had green onions, not bamboo, so who knows]

* Fried dried scallop and vegetable [nothing matched this description]

* Soup [hot-and-sour]

* Court principal food [by process of elimination, this was possibly the rice buns with various fillings; of the two I ate, one had a sweet bean filling, and the other had no filling]

* Court snack [not sure what this is]

* Minced meat and sesame seed cake [more properly described as, ';ground pork on a small sesame seed bun';--fairly tasty]

* Varied fruit [a pretty accurate description]

There was also some dish consisting of shrimp in a sweet-and-sour kind of sauce, sitting atop a foamy meringue-type substance, surrounded by fried dumplings with fish inside.

I enjoyed the meal as a whole as an introduction to dishes and cooking styles I hadn%26#39;t had before. But much of the food was rather bland, and it was clear that this food was mass-produced in a huge kitchen.

TUESDAY

At breakfast I mainly stuck to cold cereal since I%26#39;m getting a little tired of heavy breakfasts and there aren%26#39;t many light options. I also had a couple more zongzi. The buffet lunch was unremarkable; I didn%26#39;t eat much. The conference ended in the afternoon, and at around 5:30 Y and I got in a taxi to head to dinner at Beijing Da Dong, which is regarded by many as the best restaurant for Beijing duck. There are two locations; we went to the one in the Dongcheng district.

Da Dong is quite stylish and nicely designed. The menu is literally the size of a small phone book, since each item takes up a half-page, with full color pictures, price lists (many items can be purchased in various quantities, e.g., S/M/L or by the gram), and narrative descriptions, in Chinese and English. The English descriptions were flowery and elevated and sounded like a cross between descriptions you%26#39;d hear on Iron Chef and those you%26#39;d read in the J. Peterman catalog. Many of the items looked delicious. Others looked like things that I%26#39;d have to be in a pretty adventurous mood to try, like spiny sea cucumber and various meat parts I don%26#39;t usually eat.

Y decided to order a lot of dishes, in addition to a half duck, so that we could try a lot of things. We had hoped that more folks from the conference would join us, but in the end we ate alone and wound up leaving a lot of leftovers behind.

We started with two cold dishes:

* steamed lotus root with syrup--sweet and nicely chewy, with the holes in the root filled with sticky rice. The root is sliced about half-inch thick, then cut in half, and the semicircles are served standing on the flat side.

* chicken Sichuan style--a little spicy but wonderfully flavored. It was a little greasy, though, and worse, there were big pieces of skin and gristle that you had to avoid (at first, I failed to).

Normally you eat the cold dishes while the hot dishes are being prepared, but our hot dishes came out right on the heels of the cold; apparently Y ordered popular items that they keep nearly ready to leave the kitchen at all times. They were:

* stewed white fungus and mushroom soup--the broth was light and subtle and tasted like chicken broth, and the soup had some soft, slippery vegetables that I guessed were cabbage but Y said was a special kind of mushroom; they were translucent and a bit crunchy and very nice.

* Stir-fried Australian veal with shallot--the veal was sliced thin and the shallots were really scallions. The presentation looked similar to something you%26#39;d be familiar with from a good Chinese restaurant in the U.S. There was also an intricately carved carrot piece with some herb or flower stuck in it. But the dish tasted a little off, somehow, to both of us.

* Two flavor bean curd--these were little rolls made of silken tofu, with two different kinds of filling that I can%26#39;t identify. The rolls were about the size of a piece of a sushi roll, maybe a little taller. Y put a few on my plate, but then they%26#39;re virtually impossible to pick up with chopsticks since they%26#39;re round and slippery. Y said you just put your face to the plate and suck it up, but even that technique didn%26#39;t really work--the things broke in half and then the second half couldn%26#39;t even be sucked up--plus I%26#39;m sure I looked like a total idiot. Anyway, they tasted very nice.

* Purple rice with ???--I can%26#39;t remember the last word, which was in English but I didn%26#39;t recognize. Some kind of fish, I think--little bits of it, smoked or roasted and nicely chewy, like fish bacon, mixed in with the rice, along with some scallions or something. Extremely tasty.

Finally, the duck. At Y%26#39;s request, they waited to bring the duck until after we had worked on the other dishes for a while. The duck is wheeled out to your table on a cart by a chef wearing a surgical facemask and plastic, cafeteria-style gloves. I assume the facemask is so he doesn%26#39;t breathe into your duck, but it adds to the effect of the surgical carving he performs on the duck. He brought a whole duck but only carved half, into precise little pieces that he arranges in a precise way on a plate. He puts the neck meat and head onto another little plate--we did not eat these, though I understand some folks consider the head the best part.

To eat the duck, you take a pancake, pile on some duck (making sure to get some crispy skin and some leaner meat), then add the accoutrements. The traditional toppings are julienned scallions and hoisin sauce, but at Da Dong you also get julienned cucumbers and radishes; garlic paste; coarse salt; and two kinds of relishes that I can%26#39;t identify, with the consistency of olive tapenade. They also brought two little sesame buns that are hollowed out like pita and that you can use in place of the pancakes.

The duck is really good. Usually I%26#39;m not a huge fan of duck, except in confit, and this had a little bit of the chewy, tender texture of a confit. The skin is nice and crisp and very flavorful. Da Dong uses a method that they claim leaves the skin crispier and results in a duck with half the fat of most Beijing duck. I believe it.

Halfway through the meal they bring you some duck soup, ostensibly made from your individual duck, which was mild and not worth eating too much of--there were far better things on the table vying for room in our stomachs. Needless to say, we did not finish all the dishes before we were totally full. Once it was clear we were mostly done, they brought us each a zongzi, on the house, in honor of the holiday. Then they brought a sort of semi-fredo made of persimmon, on the house. Then they brought the dessert that Y had actually ordered, which was fresh fruit (watermelon, another kind of melon, and cherries), piled on a plastic grate that%26#39;s sitting on dry ice. The platter comes out wrapped in wisps of dry-ice smoke and the effect is quite stunning.

The total check was RMB369, or about $50. The half duck itself cost RMB79 ($10), plus RMB8 ($1) per person for the trimmings. Oddly, when they bring the check, they also bring each diner an individually packaged stick of Wrigley%26#39;s Doublemint gum. We thought about taking some leftovers back to the hotel with us (the rooms have refrigerators) but in the end it didn%26#39;t seem worth it.

After dinner we walked around for a bit and then took a taxi to the Wangfujing area. The part we went to was a pedestrian-only street with ritzy shops all over. The Beijing 2008 Olympics are everywhere--billboards, dedicated Olympics souvenir shops, and, most notably, the construction that%26#39;s all over the place, from new building construction to renovations to sidewalks torn up for repairs. We stopped in the Olympics store, which was possibly the most expensive store I went into in Beijing. Prices are roughly comparable to what you%26#39;d pay for toys and hats and T-shirts at a major-league baseball or football stadium.

We turned off the main street into a pedestrian side street full of food vendors selling mainly kabobs. Past the food there was a stretch of road lined on both sides with stalls selling souvenir junk--fake jade Buddhas, chopsticks, Mao books, toys, paper fans, and various other chotchkes. We walked the length and then back, with Y picking up some items to look at or show me and then us fending off the vendors. Just before we left, I decided I wanted to buy something just to get some practice while Y was there.

I saw some silk-covered notebooks that seemed less crappy than the rest of it so I asked how much. The vendor asked back, how much? I shrugged--not as a bargaining ploy but because I was flummoxed; I had expected to hear a number first, and then to divide by 10, which I had read is a reasonable rule of thumb in Beijing bargaining. She asked me how many I wanted to buy and I told her 2. She pulled out a calculator, said ';since you%26#39;re his [Y%26#39;s] friend,'; and typed 360 ($50). Y and I looked at each other and shook our heads. The vendor handed me the calculator and asked for my ';best price.'; I typed 40. She entered another number-I can%26#39;t remember what-and I came back with 70. She asked for 100. I said OK. At that point Y nearly shrieked, ';no!!'; The vendor slapped him good-naturedly--he blew her huge profit margin--then a long conversation in Chinese ensued. Finally, Y turned to me and said that she came down to 40, but he could get her down further if I wanted to wait longer. I did not. I bought the two books for 40 and we left. The vendor was good-natured and playfully aggressive throughout the process. I felt crazy for having been about to pay 100, but glad to get this first bargaining experience out of the way, and nervous about how I%26#39;ll do later in the week without a Chinese friend to help me out.

We left, walked around some more, then caught a taxi and headed back to the hotel.

WEDNESDAY

This morning at 8:30 our conference-organized tour departed for the Great Wall. We went to the Badaling section, which is the best preserved and also most popular section of the wall, about an hour%26#39;s drive from Beijing. You arrive into a crowded parking lot packed with tour buses. Between the parking lot and the entrance to the wall there are a handful of souvenir vendors and also several pits of black bears, lounging on platforms and catching cucumber pieces thrown by tourists. (Apparently you must buy the cucumbers before you throw them, even though there are plates of chopped cucumber invitingly arrayed along the wall lining the bear pits. A colleague threw a piece of cucumber and was then scolded by the attendant, who made her pay some money.)

Once you enter the grounds of the wall itself, it%26#39;s a short climb to get onto the wall. The wall is quite incredible as a feat of ancient engineering. My understanding is that this portion of the wall is renovated but not reconstructed--it is really hundreds of years old. (Other sections are modern reproductions.) It dips down valleys and climbs up mountainsides, twisting and turning. Every so often there%26#39;s a watchtower, where guards used to live and keep an eye out for invading enemies. (Now the guards sell postcards and bottled water.) The Beijing pollution has made it out to the mountains, and it was really hazy at the wall, just like in the city. The poor visibility was a bummer.

People had told me that walking the wall is exhausting, but I had no idea. Most parts are very steep, and the flat parts are short and infrequent. Much of the path is stairs, but some is also pavement, even where the wall is very steep--there are parts where you feel you%26#39;re going to slide right down.

This section of the wall basically makes a big loop. If you hike far enough, you get to the ';slide,'; sort of like a slow roller coaster that will take you back down to the parking lot. Our tour guide had told us we had 2 hours, so after about an hour of walking we had a choice: turn back and return the way we came, or keep hiking and hope to get to the slide--and down--in time. My companions and I decided on the former, since we were exhausted and it was hard to tell how much farther/harder it would be to plow ahead. The walk down was a bit easier, even though the constant dips and rises means it%26#39;s not really a walk ';down.';

They brought us to have lunch at the Beijing Dragon Land Superior Jade Gallery, a department-store-sized jade merchant with a restaurant in the back. The restaurant is set up for quick meals for large groups. Within minutes of sitting at big, round, 10-seat tables, there were cold and hot dishes delivered to the lazy Susan in the middle. The food was an unremarkable assortment of meat and vegetable dishes, soup, rice, dumplings, etc. Not great but not horrible either--although it was mass-produced, in some ways it tasted more freshly prepared than the mass-produced stuff at the Summer Palace banquet a few nights ago.

Once lunch was over, we still had about an hour until the buses left. This is obviously carefully arranged between the tour operators and BDLSJG. So of course you wander around, browsing the wares. The place is huge, with tons of shelves and display cases, but lots and lots of repetition. At first I thought there were many different merchants, which would explain the size, but it%26#39;s all one company, just many copies of the same goods. I guess they set their capacity for larger crowds. There were a couple of other tour groups there at the same time but the place wasn%26#39;t full.

The jade was attractive but incredibly expensive--for example, RMB20,000 ($2500) for a bangle. And I don%26#39;t think these were starting prices for bargaining--it seemed to be a ';no haggle'; kind of place. It%26#39;s hard to believe all the jade was real, or that the quality was as high as the prices suggested. BDLSJG%26#39;s trademark item seemed to be a carved jade sphere with holes in it, inside of which was another sphere with holes in it, inside of which was a third sphere. The spheres roll around independently inside each other, and it%26#39;s all carved out of one solid piece of jade--you can see them being made by hand in a little glass-enclosed room that you pass on your way to the shopping area.

The only thing that really interested me there was some ';reverse-painted'; glass. Basically it%26#39;s a glass sphere (or vase) that%26#39;s mostly hollowed out, forming another sphere inside. The inner sphere is glazed, and an artist paints the inner sphere from the inside, inserting the brush into a hole drilled into the bottom. It%26#39;s pretty impressive to watch the painter at work. Most of the spheres are painted with the animals from the Chinese zodiac and are colorful and garish. I bought a small sphere with fish painted in black and grey that looks elegant and pretty. It cost RMB60. He%26#39;ll paint your name in it for you while you wait, but I declined. I subsequently read that reverse-painted glass is popular here, and I expect I%26#39;ll see more of it in future shopping trips, probably cheaper.

After we left BDLSJG, we headed to the Ming Tombs, about 20 minutes away. It%26#39;s a large complex of buildings and gardens in which 13 of the 16 Ming emperors (and their empresses and concubines) are buried. The traditional Chinese-style pagoda-type architecture was neat, but it wasn%26#39;t all that spectacular--I%26#39;m told that once I see the Forbidden City, I%26#39;ll think the Ming Tombs are pretty lame. Apparently there are a couple of tombs that you can go into--I%26#39;m not sure what you see down there--but our guides didn%26#39;t bring us into them. I got the sense this might be due to liability concerns, since it%26#39;s dark down there, but anyway, a few people who had been there before were disappointed, so maybe we missed the best part.

We got back to the hotel at around 5:15 and Y left for the airport. I took a nap for about an hour and then walked around near the hotel in search of some food. I wanted something relatively easy and preferably not more stir-fry, since I%26#39;m getting a little sick of it (especially the poorly prepared stuff). There are lots of restaurants but I couldn%26#39;t find any that had English signs or an English menu, other than fancy places where I didn%26#39;t want to eat alone. I even tried Big Pizza, which, given the English name, seemed like it would have an English menu, but I was met with blank stares when I asked (in English, obviously), so I gave up. I wound up back at the hotel restaurant, where I had beef soup with noodles. It was actually pretty good. The noodles were a disappointment--just plain spaghetti--but the broth was very nicely flavored and the beef was tender-chewy like good braised stew meat. Including a beer, the dinner tab was RMB55 ($7)--expensive for Beijing, but at least it was easy.

THURSDAY

Finally, a clear(er) day! I had a quick breakfast at the hotel before X and L met me in the lobby. X is a former student of mine who is from Beijing and happened to be home visiting her family; L is her husband. They gave me some tea in a nice gift box, and a little bag of lychees that they had bought on the way. I dropped the gifts off in my room and we took a taxi to Prince Gong%26#39;s Palace.

The Palace is popular with Chinese tourists but less so with western ones, so I was glad to be taken there by some native Beijingers. Most of the grounds are taken up by gardens, which are serene (except for the tourists, many of whom are not) and beautiful. You enter through the ostentatiously European-looking ';western-style gate'; onto a sleepy pond shaded by locust (?) trees. Behind it is the main building, Anshan Hall. Like many of the buildings at the Palace, this hall is beautifully painted in very vibrant colors. The buildings here were repainted last year, probably in preparation for the Olympics. The colors look great.

My favorite sight was the ';flowing cup pavilion,'; a colorfully painted gazebo. A small stream flows into the pavilion, through a meandering channel carved into the floor, and then out. My hosts told me that poets used to sit in the pavilion drinking spirits; when the cup came to a given poet, he had to compose a poem before drinking. It%26#39;s a little more respectable than beer pong.

Nearby is the boat pavilion, surrounded by water and accessible via a wooden footbridge. The interior of the ceiling is painted with various scenes from Chinese folk tales and from Beijing life.

Last, we went to the Theatrical House, the most famous part of the Palace. It%26#39;s a small theater with an ornately painted interior. You sit at a table and are served tea and snacks while a Chinese variety show is performed on stage. The show includes Beijing opera; an acrobat who spun a large stick adorned with metal blades, balancing it and spinning it around his body; a pretty lame magic act; a guy who whistled impressively loud and realistic bird and insect noises while pantomiming interactions with the creatures (trying to catch them, etc.); and my favorite, four women balancing six spinning plates (each!) on long sticks. As if it%26#39;s not hard enough to do it while standing still, they%26#39;re dancing, tumbling, and doing headstands, and the show%26#39;s star did a backbend and picked up a flower in her teeth at floor level, all while twirling the plates. Quite amazing. The show repeats every 1/2 hour or so, and the staff does an impressive job of getting a couple hundred people in and out and changing the dishes (one hopes) in that short time.

We spent about an hour and a half at the Palace and saw most of what there was to see, except for the functioning Tea House. L grew up near the Palace and went to middle school across the street from it, so we next wandered around the hutong (back alleyways) where his old house is. This hutong is pretty drab and there%26#39;s not a lot to see there, but it was interesting to see a real hutong that%26#39;s not dressed up for tourists. It is quite a maze, and even L got lost once or twice. We emerged onto the Houhai lake bar strip, an area of bars most of which opened in the last five years. Apparently it%26#39;s a happening place at night, but it%26#39;s reasonably quiet during the day.

Next we wandered the ';Pipe'; Street hutong, so named because of the shops selling tobacco pipes and because the street itself is shaped like a long-stemmed pipe. This hutong is more commercially active and less maze-like than the first.

The hutong lets out onto a major boulevard not far from the drum tower, a stout, 200-year-old tower in which officials used to bang drums to mark the time. We climbed up the steep steps to the mezzanine level, where a set of 25 reproduction drums is located. We caught one of the half-hourly drum performances, which involve 5 drummers playing rhythmically on the huge drums, although the original time-keeping was done slowly and methodically on a single drum. There%26#39;s also a really interesting water clock that tells time (approximately) based on flowing water. The balcony offers a good view of this part of the city, partially obstructed by smog, including a recently destroyed hutong below. Nearby you can see the bell tower, which served a similar time-keeping purpose and which presents a striking contrast with the modern Beijing behind it.

We took a taxi to the largest branch of Quan Ju De, the most famous restaurant for Beijing duck. The restaurant occupies several floors. We ate on the fourth floor, which is like a huge ballroom. It%26#39;s much more early-nineteenth-century than Da Dong%26#39;s twenty-first-century look, except for the flat-screen TV at one end and the cell-phone headsets the hostesses use to communicate among floors.

X and L ordered a whole duck and two cold starters--sliced duck liver and pickled cucumbers. The cucumbers were delicious, sweet and sour like gherkins and also a little spicy. The liver was good too, nicely flavored and not overly rich.

The Beijing duck was significantly crispier but also significantly fattier than the duck at Da Dong. Each bite felt much richer. The duck was served with more wrapping options--flour pancakes, corn pancakes, and lettuce leaves--but fewer condiments--only hoisin and julienned scallions. The carving was precise but a little less fastidious than at Da Dong, and the meat was piled rather than arrayed on the plate. We drank pu%26#39;er (black) tea, which was very flavorfull, with the pot constantly refilled with hot water by the waitstaff. The mid-meal soup was tastier than Da Dong%26#39;s, probably because of the richer duck. There were no freebies and my hosts did not order dessert. According to the certificate we received at the end of our meal, we ate duck number 115,405,744 since the restaurant opened in 1864. It was a terrific meal, but all in all I%26#39;d probably choose Da Dong over Quan Ju De.

Leaving the restaurant, we walked to a quiet street whose stores sell art supplies. (Many streets in Beijing seem to be organized by product, dedicated to art supplies, tea, hardware, electronics, etc. In the U.S. I can think of similar streets for jewelry, but not much else.) We entered several of these, and I was particularly impressed with the Chinese ink that%26#39;s used for calligraphy. The ink comes in solid blocks that are themselves beautifully carved and decorated. One mixes the ink with water on an ';ink stone,'; which has a flat surface for mixing and a little pool that the mixing surface drains into and that you dip the brush into. The ink stones are magnificently carved and sell for a few thousand RMB. It seems that art supplies in China are themselves works of art. We also looked in a few galleries selling contemporary Chinese art. I liked most of it but particularly liked the more spare style that uses mainly black ink and lots of white space--I think this is more the old style.

Next we took a taxi to Tea Street. I think Tea Street is an actual street, but we wound up in an indoor tea shopping mall with several dozen vendors. A vendor will brew several teas for you to try, and moderate bargaining is possible. After sampling the wares of one vendor near the entrance who appeared to be a little pricy, we wandered deeper into the mall and entered a store called Che Yun Shan Tea Co. The proprietor was a friendly young guy who brewed 5 or 6 teas for us. This is an elaborate process involving an initial rinse of the tea in hot water, a rinsing and heating of the cups by splashing the lightly brewed tea-water over them, more brewing, etc. I liked all the teas we tried and he quoted us a price of RMB7 per 50 grams, about $1 for 2 oz. This was cheaper than the first vendor and X said it seemed reasonable, so I decided to buy from this guy.

I chose four kinds of tea--green, oolong, red with rose petals, and jasmine. I bought a 100-gram box of each for myself and three gift boxes, each containing a 50-gram box of each of the four teas. You buy the gift boxes in a separate store across the way, and this involved lots of shuttling back and forth to find boxes of the appropriate size, quality, and design. The vendor was good-natured about this, as was L, who did most of the shuttling. The whole operation was complex and time consuming and resulted in me buying lots of tea for myself and lots for gifts for RMB185 ($25), including the gift boxes. We did essentially no bargaining, except to get the (non-gift) containers for free. These normally cost RMB2 each. I assume I could have bargained him down a little on the price of the tea, but I didn%26#39;t bother since it seemed like a good price.

After Tea Street, X and L put me in a taxi and gave the driver my hotel name and address. I got there around 4:30, rested, and headed to dinner...

...at McDonalds. Y and X had both told me that McDonalds (and KFC) are ';much more delicious'; in China than in the U.S., and I wanted to find out for myself. This, of course, is partly a rationalization for the fact that I was back at the hotel and had already tried, unsuccessfully, to find an English-friendly restaurant nearby, and that I was ready for something other than Chinese food. I was hoping that the menu board would have numbered combo deals, like in the U.S., so I could just hold up fingers and point. No such luck. I asked the cashier, ';English menu?'; and found once again that this is not a widely recognized phrase, even at McDonalds. Even the word ';English'; appears to be inscrutable. (This is probably less true closer to downtown.) I have to learn how to say ';English'; in Chinese. Anyway, after I babbled and pointed for a bit, the cashier pulled out a picture menu with English on it. I pointed to the spicy chicken ';burger'; combo and chose the small size. It took the poor cashier several tries but he managed to convey ';for here?'; to me and I nodded. Thankfully he did not ask what kind of drink I want, or maybe he did and I missed it--anyway, I got the default Coke. The food was indeed a bit better than in the U.S.--but it was still McDonalds. Even so, it was comforting and familiar.

I%26#39;ve now crossed the street all by myself about eight times, and have not gotten killed a single time. It seems the trick is to find someone who looks like they%26#39;re about to cross in the same direction as you (I say ';appears to be'; because sudden changes of direction are likely and unpredictable) and stay as close as possible to them. The other trick is that if you are about to collide with a car or bicycle and the driver sees you, you should maintain speed and direction since they are probably accounting for your trajectory and aiming to miss you by millimeters. Also, the green ';walk'; light should be taken with a grain of salt since right-turning bikes, cars, and buses will usurp right of way.

One note about the hotel: The rugs in the elevators are removed and cleaned every day. To guarantee this, the rugs have the name of the day of the week on them. I don%26#39;t know if this is standard in China, but it seems fussy and cute to me.

FRIDAY

I had a quick breakfast and got ready for a day of sightseeing and shopping. I stopped at the hotel concierge desk to ask them to write ';Forbidden City'; and ';Temple of Heaven'; for me to show the taxi driver. There were four young guys there, and none of them understood me, but one of the people from the reception desk filled my request--in fact, the back of the hotel%26#39;s business card is preprinted with ';take me to'; in Chinese and then a few blanks that they can fill in. Very convenient, when you can actually communicate to them what you%26#39;d like them to do.

Outside the hotel there were a few taxis waiting. One of them beckoned me eagerly, and when I showed him the card, he said (in English), ';fifty.'; I said, ';no, meter,'; to which he replied, ';fifty,'; so I walked away and hailed a cab down the street. My cab cost 43 or so, so I only saved a dollar, but it was worth it not to feel gypped. It seems to me you should never agree to a rate up-front (unless it%26#39;s a very long distance, in which case that%26#39;s how they do it), since a cabbie quoting you a price up-front has no incentive to go below his estimate for the meter rate.

The taxi dropped me off at the east gate of the Forbidden City at around 8:30 am. You can%26#39;t enter at the east gate but cars can%26#39;t drive along the road to the south gate, so I walked. (I suspect there was a better place to get dropped off.) There was already a reasonably sized crowd outside the FC. I bought my ticket, rented the audio guide (total RMB100), and went inside.

The FC is currently under significant renovations, and the main building that you%26#39;ve seen in pictures is totally covered with scaffolding. Still, it%26#39;s an amazing place. In addition to the sprawling palace grounds, it also houses a lot of exhibitions within the buildings themselves. I am not one to spend a lot of time looking at museum exhibitions in detail, especially when there are few descriptions in English, so I spent most of my time wandering the grounds rather than entering the buildings. The courtyards near the south gate is immense. The buildings along it have mostly been repainted (except the central building), and the painting is exquisite.

I found that many of the side areas, like the 12 smaller palaces on each side toward the north end, are virtually empty, at least at this time of morning, since the large tour groups mainly stay in the center portion of the complex. The more minor areas have not yet been renovated, and much of the exterior is in desperate need of repainting, but there%26#39;s still a lot to see and a lot of atmosphere in those small courtyards.

The audio tour is well designed. It senses where you are and plays the appropriate audio nugget. The iPod-like device has a map of the FC on it, and lights go on and off to tell you where you are and what you%26#39;ve visited. The audio does a good job of explaining things (though I understand that Roger Moore did the previous version, and he would have been better).

I spent about two and a half hours at the FC, then retraced my steps and exited the south gate into Tiananmen Square. The square is absolutely immense, designed to hold 1 million people. It%26#39;s flanked at the north end by the famous wall with the famous picture of Mao. Other sides hold the Parliament building and other government offices.

There%26#39;s not a lot to do at Tiananmen, so I headed to the Temple of Heaven. It was hard to tell on the map how far the walk would be, so I figured I%26#39;d walk south a little ways, find some lunch, and then decide whether to take a taxi or keep walking. I walked down a large street that heads south from the western edge of Tiananmen. It was a busy street with lots of restaurants, but few that seemed English-friendly. I wandered down a couple of busy side-streets with no luck. I saw one or two places that sold food from a window, which would have been easy because you can just point to the food you want, but none of it looked that good. So I walked and walked and finally came to the Temple of Heaven. At this point it was 1:00. It had been two hours since I left the Forbidden City, and I had been on my feet non-stop since 8:30. Having struck out food-wise, I bought an ice-cream bar from a vendor outside the ToH entrance, bought my entry ticket, went inside, and sat.

The ToH is basically a big park, with a couple of focal points, most notably the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. I entered at the west gate. The western portion of the park is less well tended than the eastern portion and is frequented mainly by locals, very few tourists. It%26#39;s tranquil and pleasant, but for some reason I found it a little creepy; I suspect it%26#39;s because I was tired and hungry and kept getting lost.

But then I found my way to the rose garden, which was a little past its season but still beautiful, and then to HoPfGH, which is also magnificent. I did not go in, since it requires an additional admission fee and I wasn%26#39;t up for more climbing, but I walked around it quite a bit. Part of this walking around was inadvertent: I was looking for the east gate, which appears to be closed during renovations. This cost me an extra mile or so of walking, before I finally made my way out the north gate.

After leaving the ToH, I walked about 10 minutes to the Pearl (Hongqiao) Market. The market is a 5-story shopping mall with individual vendors occupying stalls or little rooms. The first floor contains ';silk'; and ';cashmere'; items, electronics, and general Chinese bric-a-brac; the second has handbags and luggage plus more bric-a-brac; the third floor has cheap-looking jewelry, especially ';pearls'; and ';jade';; the fourth floor has larger stores (more reminiscent of a western shopping mall) selling higher-quality jewelry (or so one would speculate based on presentation and price), mainly pearls; the fifth floor is laid out like the fourth but the shops look cheaper. I wandered around a bit to get my bearings before trying to buy anything.

My first purchase was for two sets of chopsticks and placemats (6 each). The vendor opened with the astronomical price of RMB360; I countered with 25. He came down to 180, I went to 40, and after a few more rounds we settled on 50 (for both sets--about $6.50). At another vendor I bought two painted ';porcelain'; tea mugs for 30 and a sandalwood fan for 12.

So far this was going pretty well, but I suspected I could do better. Things seemed too easy, which suggested I was offering too high a price. Also, at the last vendor I started at 10 for the fan (after his opener of 125), came up to 12 and then stuck to 12 no matter what he said. I didn%26#39;t want the fan badly enough to pay more than that. And in the end he agreed to 12, suggesting that persistence is a pretty good strategy.

I decided to try setting a mental price that was pretty low and stick to it no matter what, to see what happens. I went to a stall selling ';silk'; scarves, picked out 4 of them and settled on a maximum price of RMB15 ($2) each in my mind. The vendor started at 120 each, I opened with 8, came gradually up to 15, and refused to go higher. She told me that 15 is ';impossible,'; there%26#39;s no way she can sell it to me for that, and so on, and I walked away. She called after me, ';what%26#39;s your best best price?'; I walked back and said 15--no more. More wailing and gnashing of teeth from her, she came down a little more, and I walked away again. Again she called me, and after one or two more iterations of this, she agreed.

I tried my new strategy out again at a vendor selling more chopstick/placemat sets, as well as matching table runners. I picked out two sets with matching runners and started bargaining for all 4 items. My mental maximum was 40 for the lot. I don%26#39;t remember the exact sequence, but in the end she came down to 90 and wouldn%26#39;t go down further, so I walked away. She didn%26#39;t call after me.

I went to a nearby store and found the exact same items (this is common). I decided that since 40 didn%26#39;t get me anywhere, I%26#39;d be willing to go up to 50 but no more. The new vendor started at 890 for the lot. This was a little ridiculous even by Pearl Market standards. I countered with 25 and told her that, no, that was not my ';joke price.'; After a few rounds, she was down to 120 and I was up to 50. She insisted that no one could sell all this for 50, if I could find it for 50 I should come tell her and she%26#39;d give me the items ';as gift.'; So I said that another vendor had offered me lower than her 120 for the same items, and when she asked how much I told her 70, and that even that was too high which is why I had walked away from that vendor. (This was my favorite gambit of the day. She has no idea if I%26#39;m telling the truth but it sets a definite target she%26#39;ll have to beat if she wants the sale, thus bypassing some intermediate steps.) She eventually said she%26#39;d match 70 and I said, no--if 70 was acceptable I%26#39;d have bought it from the other lady. She wouldn%26#39;t come down, I walked away. She called after me and offered to split the difference--60. I said no, 50, and walked away. She called me back, offered 55. I said no and walked away, and she agreed to 50. Victory! This one took the longest but was also the most satisfying--from 890 to 50.

Here is my strategy, developed during a whole 2 hours of bargaining:

1. Figure out what you think is the minimum the item would go for in the U.S. Then subtract a good chunk, like 1/3. Set this as your mental maximum price. I find I have to do this before I even start talking to the vendor, or the faced-paced patter makes it too hard to think this through clearly.

2. Whatever their opening number is, counter with something a little lower than your maximum--maybe 75% of it.

3. As they come down, come up slowly. Arrive at your maximum in 2 or 3 iterations and don%26#39;t budge after that, even when they come down.

4. If they seem to stop coming down in price, just tell them thanks anyway and walk away. If they call after you, there%26#39;s still bargaining left to do. If not, you%26#39;re near the bottom of their range.

5. They will tell you it%26#39;s ';impossible,'; ';no one can sell for that price.'; They%26#39;ll ask if you%26#39;re joking, ask if your price is expressed in USD. They%26#39;ll try to make you think you%26#39;ve insulted them, or that you%26#39;ve shown yourself to be an idiot by quoting a price that%26#39;s not even in the right ballpark. They%26#39;ll tell you it%26#39;s real silk, real sandalwood, that the box contains 20 pieces (and then divide your price by 20 to show how ridiculous it is), that it%26#39;s only $4 in USD. This is all part of their strategy, just like lowballing is part of yours. Just smile and don%26#39;t be put off by it.

6. Don%26#39;t feel guilty. If they aren%26#39;t making a profit they won%26#39;t sell it to you. There are plenty of clueless folks to keep the vendor in business; don%26#39;t be one of them.

7. Stay good-natured the whole time. If the vendor isn%26#39;t good-natured, walk away.

Next I went up to the 4th floor to try my hand at buying jewelry. I browsed briefly in Sharon%26#39;s, where I read U.S. embassy folks and flight attendants come to shop, but the prices seemed pretty high. Also, I found it weird that, when I entered, four employees looked up from their pearl-stringing and didn%26#39;t say anything to me, but when a better-dressed, older guy entered immediately after me, one of them was up in a heartbeat with an enthusiastic, ';hello sir!';

Anyway, I walked down the corridor to Ye Jin Ying, which I had read good things about on Fodors (good prices, good English). There were several Chinese salesladies there, and four middle-aged Americans. One of the Americans asked where I was from, and I told her, and then she asked what I was looking for, which seemed strange--why is she acting like a salesperson? I gave a vague answer at first. She told me that the four of them own a jewelry business in Oklahoma and that they%26#39;re here making a wholesale buy--that they%26#39;ve been buying from this store at least twice a year for 8 years, that they really like her, and that the pearls usually appraise for about 3x what they pay for them.

I didn%26#39;t know what to make of this. My scam detector was primed, but something about the vibe made me think they were for real. After all, would it be a worthwhile scam to hire four Americans to sit around and lure other Americans in? Also, she offered me advice and pointed some items out to me but didn%26#39;t try to up-sell me. (I later checked out the Oklahoma folks%26#39; web site, and it seems legit.)

One of the Americans (Judy) asked what I was looking for, and for whom. She suggested a few items and talked to me about how to examine the pearls (luster, color, etc.). I looked first at a string of pearls, and I asked Judy what ballpark these were--I had no idea. She said, ';you%26#39;ll be surprised'; and asked the proprietor to quote me ';a good price.'; I thought that the price _was_ good, but a little more than I wanted to spend, since I had no idea of the pearls%26#39; true quality. I asked Judy quietly whether that was a starting price (for bargaining) or the final word, and she indicated that%26#39;s probably more or less the final price.

Since those were too pricy, Judy suggested a strand of smaller pearls. The price for those was significantly lower, and I thought they looked good (I was surprised how obvious the differences are between different pearls--luster, color, shape). I bought one, and one of the salespeople strung it on nylon and added a clasp. I also bought a pre-made pearl necklace. I think the price was fair. Let%26#39;s put it this way: I have no idea how to assess these pearls. If it turns out they%26#39;re junky fakes, I got ripped off. If it turns out they%26#39;re good fakes, I probably paid a little too much. If it turns out they%26#39;re real but not great quality, I think it%26#39;s a good deal. I%26#39;m leaning toward thinking the latter, but what do I know?

Next I went back to Sharon%26#39;s and picked out a ';jade'; bracelet. I asked the clerk whether prices are fixed or you can bargain. She said, ';if there%26#39;s something you really like, I can give you discount.'; I guess ';discount'; is the codeword they prefer to ';bargain.'; Anyway, I asked what the discount would be and she quoted me a price about 60% less than the price on the tag. I offered her about 60% less than that. She said her price was as low as she could go and I said I%26#39;d think about it. I wandered around a little, went out onto the roof from the 5th floor for a nice view of the Temple of Heaven, went back to Sharon%26#39;s, haggled her down a little bit to about $13, and bought the bracelet. I left the Pearl Market, walked a few blocks away to hail a cab (since the cabbies near the market are fishy), braved the traffic, and made it back to the hotel.

After a quick shower, I went to dinner in the hotel restaurant. Although there were more waiters than customers, the A-team must have been off duty tonight--for the first time, the service was off and language was a big problem. The hotel restaurant has a weird mix of things, mainly famous non-Chinese dishes like goulash, insalata Caprese, hamburgers, etc. I thought Asian food would be the way to go so I ordered a Thai style noodle dish with shrimp and pork, basically pad thai. It was mediocre. Not a great last dinner in China. All in all I%26#39;m disappointed with my food performance on this trip--not China%26#39;s fault, but my own.

SATURDAY

I caught a taxi around 7:15 and headed to the Dirt (Panjiayuan) Market. Traffic was light but my driver misread the card written by the hotel; he took me to the ';Alien'; Market instead (at least I think so, since all the signs nearby were in Russian, and the Alien Market is frequented by lots of Russians). It didn%26#39;t seem like we went too far out of the way, though, and when we finally arrived at the Dirt Market I just paid him the full fare rather than arguing.

The Dirt Market is in a huge covered pavilion. About half of the vendors sell new stuff, including art, costume jewelry, and Chinese chotchkes, and the other half is more like a flea market, with ';antique'; (i.e., ';used';) stuff for sale. Vendors in the former half have stalls while those in the latter display their wares on blankets on the floor. It was quite crowded, more so as the morning wore on, and it seemed more difficult to bargain really hard than at the Pearl Market, which was fairly empty yesterday. I had several vendors dismiss me after my first price, not even coming back with a counteroffer.

I wandered around and bought a few more gifts and souvenirs, doing a good job bargaining on some items and a bad job on others. I saw a nicely carved ink stone, not too big, and asked how much. I lost the first round of bargaining and felt disappointed as I walked away--obviously I particularly wanted this item--so I decided to come up a little in price, especially since returning to the stall when you%26#39;ve made the last bid puts you in a weaker position. There were a few more rounds of bargaining, a few iterations of walking away and being called back (that%26#39;s when I knew I had regained the upper hand a bit), and even a phone call by the vendor to her boss. Finally I bought it for a price I was happy with.

In the end I bought a bunch of good stuff for $40 and had a good time. Of course, the taxis there and back cost nearly $20 (since my hotel is so far away), but that%26#39;s OK.

After I got back I packed, managing to squeeze everything into my bags. I checked out of the hotel and got a taxi to the airport. The taxi meter was on, but it was moving incredibly slowly, and I figured something was up. When we arrived at the airport the driver handed me two pre-printed receipts totaling RMB150--his way of quoting me a price. I was annoyed that he hadn%26#39;t discussed the price with me ahead of time and that the meter was on, implying I%26#39;d pay by the meter. I showed him my receipt from my taxi ride from the airport to the hotel a week ago, for RMB81, and he said 100. I agreed, to avoid a hassle, but was still a little irritated.

At the airport, you go through Chinese customs first, which confused me since that%26#39;s not typical when you leave most countries. After that, you check in for your flight at your airline%26#39;s ticket counter. I checked in quite early and was rewarded with an exit row, aisle seat. After check-in comes immigration and finally security. I had the friendliest immigration officer ever--he addressed me in cheerful first-grade English (';nice to meet you!';) and smiled broadly the whole time. I gave him a ';very satisfied'; on the instant customer survey. This is a really weird feature of the Chinese immigration checkpoint, on the way in and the way out. There%26#39;s a little electronic device like the credit-card swiper at the supermarket that has 4 faces of differing degrees of smiliness. You are invited to rate the experience you had during your 15 seconds in immigration. It seems like a big investment by the immigration service--these devices serve no other purpose--but I guess it%26#39;s paying off, given my officer%26#39;s exemplary performance.

Anyway, I got some lunch at the overpriced airport restaurant--shredded chicken in spicy-sour sauce, steamed broccoli rabe, rice, and a Tsingtao beer. My flight home was long but uneventful.

Trip Report, 8 days in Beijing

thanks for your post, we leave for China the 13 spending 6 nights in Beijing before heading on to Xian, Yangshou and Hong Kong. Our son%26#39;s friend from college will be meeting us in Beijing but for the most part we will be on our own. Nice to read your food and shopping excursions and descriptions. It seemed on your own it was difficult to find a restaurant where you could be understood. We most things only written in characters? thanks

Trip Report, 8 days in Beijing

4vrongo: Near my hotel most signs were in Chinese, but even those with English signs seemed hard to manage if you didn%26#39;t speak the language. Closer to downtown I think this is less true. I would have eaten more and better if I had been less shy -- everyone was always willing to try to communicate with me if I tried to communicate with them, and I wish I had tried more.

Wow, that%26#39;s a really long post.

I only read the overview so I might have missed something but it seems the take home message is that it%26#39;s difficult to get food in China?

The last time I went to China I was in a similar situation to you - attending a conference and meeting with Mandarin speaking colleagues everywhere.

Next time I will be alone. I can say %26#39;chicken%26#39;, %26#39;lamb%26#39; and beef in mandarin but that%26#39;s about it. I will also have a phrase book with me. Will I be surviving on Macca%26#39;s and KFC everywhere? I assume there are some more touristy places where some English is spoken? Was the problem just that you were avoiding the tourist places or is it more the problem more widespread than that?

I didn%26#39;t mean to scare anyone or give the impression that food is a big problem for non-Chinese speakers. My difficulties arose from a combination of (1) not speaking Chinese, (2) staying in a hotel that%26#39;s off the beaten path for tourists, (3) traveling alone, so that I didn%26#39;t want to eat at nicer sit-down places where language was much less likely to be an issue, and (4) wanting to eat street food, and not being in the right place at the right time to get much of it -- when I saw it, I had already eaten, and when I wanted it, I was in the wrong part of town.

I have been reading message boards for more than a year in anticipation of our 3 week trip in October. I do have to say that your ';Shopping Review';, including the tea purchases, was the most detailed post I have ever come across. THANKS.

I know how time consuming trip reports are and just wanted to say how much I appreciate the time you put into this one.

EXCELLENT Job. Thanks again.

Nice detail larrys610.

We were in Beijing in March and used a private guide and driver through a tour agency. Cost aside, one of the joys were that they had us at different types of Chinese food for every meal, including a home-cooked meal at a family in one of the Hutongs (this was the best meal). For gourmands probably checking one of the guide books such as Frommer%26#39;s would be an advantage. Needless to say we actually (2 adults 2 kids) enjoyed our experience thoroughly... my wife did the bargaining at the various shops... she is superb and no chinese needed she impressed our guide (and the shop keepers!!!)

I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed this report. I especially loved your descriptions of the shopping/bargaining experiences and the food. I am in the early stages of planning a trip to China for Spring, 2008 and found much of what you wrote helpful. You have a great sense of humor and your description of the bed in the hotel and crossing the street were hilarious. I hope if I have to cross eight streets by myself, I can survive the experience. Even reading it from the perspective of being from NYC, it sounds perilous!

Thanks again!

Fantastic trip report! I%26#39;m hoping to go in September and will use your post as a guide.

I was in Korea some years ago and managed to get around, bargained shopped and got some good eats - so I%26#39;m hoping I can manage in Beijing.

I appreciate your very long, detailed story. I am a native californian, going to taiwan next week to visit the family of a student that stayed with me over the summer. the mother has graciously offered to go on a tour with me to Beijing and Xian. Your story gave me a better idea of all the walking we will have to do. She is Taiwanese and speaks pretty good english so she may save me when it comes to the language. I%26#39;m afraid that I am not a good haggler so won%26#39;t do much shopping but that was good advice on how to bargain for price. thank you.

Thank you very much for your candd trip report!