Beijing: Day 3 - Late Morning

After the temples, Mike and I ventured out to an open market that we had read about in the Lonely Planet. We took a cab -which was easy enough since the doorman at the hotel wrote down the address for us to give to the cab driver - it also had a map and addy of the hotel for our return trip -nice!!

We got to the market and it was teeming with vendors selling everything from tea cups to art work to Mao alarm clocks. Actually, you could find pretty much anything you wanted with Mao's face on it -lighters, posters, books, playing cards...it was quite amusing. Now, Mike and I are very similar in a lot of ways, one of them being we don't like the whole bartering process. We had our Lonely Planet book with us which gave a few guidelines on what to do, but when it comes down to it, you have to go on instinct. Our first encounter cost us just about as much as the rest of our purchases combined. Once we realized that you have to offer about 10-20% of what they are actually asking we had no trouble negotiating for 30-40% of the initial price. And we found very quickly that if you walk away, they will ALWAYS call you back and give it to you for your price. It was a real challenge for me and totally out of my element, but a good experience nonetheless.
































Because this was our free day we had to do lunch on our own. We knew we weren't going to top any of the restaurants we had been to so far, so we opted for the opposite end of the scale -McDonalds!!!