March 5th, 2007
After a quick stop at a local jade factory, our 1st destination this morning was the Ming Tombs in Changling. So they say, 17 of the Chinese Emperors are buried in this district. Only 2 of the building are open to the public, the main one being the main attraction. We then exited the site along the Sacred Way, about a km of pathway lined with full sized animal statues.
‘He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man” (Mao Zedong).
The cold and windy conditions did not stop the 4 of us from walking to the top of the Great Wall in Badaling, our next destination. A quick decision to buy a pair of North Face ‘crown-tex’ fleece gloves was the best purchase so far…what the hell is crown tex???…for $20 rnb or 3.50 cnd it really didn’t matter. We chose the route heading left, the steeper and less crowed of the 2. Aside from the howling winds, the steep steps, the icy concrete and the –20+ temperatures, this was just your ordinary scroll up the mountainside. At the top you are greeted by not 1 but a family of dudes trying to sell you shit like ‘congrats, you climbed the great wall’, and other tourist big hits. We settled for a $10 rnb stamp, with the ‘Wong’ character engraved on the bottom side…haha, maybe I’ve found my newest way in signing next years x-mas cards!
A hard but well thought-out group decision was made to skip the traditional Chinese opera for a preview of the Silk Street Market. Little did we realize that 2 ½ hours was barely enough to rumble through the 1st floor. Five floors of aggressive and at times annoying merchants turned from an overwhelming experience to a somewhat entertaining one. Every fake thing you could imagine with every phrase that every Beijinger knows; ‘laydee, you wan perssse?,..i give you bess pycie’, ‘come eene, and looke’…stoppp…why you not wan bye nice louis vuitton wallet??….After about 90 minutes, every shoe vendor knew my face, MY price, and were obviously annoyed; but not as annoyed as I was about being ripped off for a pair of fake Nikes or ‘Abercrombie & Bitch’ jeans …when you do the math, everything is still cheap.. but really, why overpay for something when you KNOW it truly is junk and will likely fall apart the minute you wear it for the 1st time!
As a group we did quite well, and quickly realized that we’d have to bargain for a huge duffel rollie the next day, just to transport this stuff back home.
In the end, if you low ball them down to 80%, piss them off, then walk away upon refusal, they WILL call you back and continue to drop the number till they make the sale…Unfortunately, ‘cash-only’ couldn’t get us another 10% off.
After a quick stop at a local jade factory, our 1st destination this morning was the Ming Tombs in Changling. So they say, 17 of the Chinese Emperors are buried in this district. Only 2 of the building are open to the public, the main one being the main attraction. We then exited the site along the Sacred Way, about a km of pathway lined with full sized animal statues.
‘He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man” (Mao Zedong).
The cold and windy conditions did not stop the 4 of us from walking to the top of the Great Wall in Badaling, our next destination. A quick decision to buy a pair of North Face ‘crown-tex’ fleece gloves was the best purchase so far…what the hell is crown tex???…for $20 rnb or 3.50 cnd it really didn’t matter. We chose the route heading left, the steeper and less crowed of the 2. Aside from the howling winds, the steep steps, the icy concrete and the –20+ temperatures, this was just your ordinary scroll up the mountainside. At the top you are greeted by not 1 but a family of dudes trying to sell you shit like ‘congrats, you climbed the great wall’, and other tourist big hits. We settled for a $10 rnb stamp, with the ‘Wong’ character engraved on the bottom side…haha, maybe I’ve found my newest way in signing next years x-mas cards!
A hard but well thought-out group decision was made to skip the traditional Chinese opera for a preview of the Silk Street Market. Little did we realize that 2 ½ hours was barely enough to rumble through the 1st floor. Five floors of aggressive and at times annoying merchants turned from an overwhelming experience to a somewhat entertaining one. Every fake thing you could imagine with every phrase that every Beijinger knows; ‘laydee, you wan perssse?,..i give you bess pycie’, ‘come eene, and looke’…stoppp…why you not wan bye nice louis vuitton wallet??….After about 90 minutes, every shoe vendor knew my face, MY price, and were obviously annoyed; but not as annoyed as I was about being ripped off for a pair of fake Nikes or ‘Abercrombie & Bitch’ jeans …when you do the math, everything is still cheap.. but really, why overpay for something when you KNOW it truly is junk and will likely fall apart the minute you wear it for the 1st time!
As a group we did quite well, and quickly realized that we’d have to bargain for a huge duffel rollie the next day, just to transport this stuff back home.
In the end, if you low ball them down to 80%, piss them off, then walk away upon refusal, they WILL call you back and continue to drop the number till they make the sale…Unfortunately, ‘cash-only’ couldn’t get us another 10% off.
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