Kyle and I had originally planned on shopping for an hour or two and then going to the Temple of Heaven to look around. We had to be at a shopping centre to meet everyone else at 3:20 to get a ride to the airport. The flight home was at 6.
Some of the highlights: Nike T-shirts ($4), North Face winter jacket ($25), big North Face backpacker's backpack to cart all of the crap home($25), 100% silk scarves($10), two belts($5), Sunglasses...and all kinds of other little things I can't remember right now.
There were just so many things to buy and getting the price down to the lowest level usually took a fair amount of haggling. I didn't care too much about any more sightseeing, so I wasn't concerned about getting to the Temple of Heaven, but there were two things that I wanted to do. Try McDonalds in China and buy some DVDs. We had talked to some other guys from our tour and they had bought DVDs for about 1.50 each. We should have had lots of time as we had arrived at the market at about 9:30am. Nevertheless, we were still in the back of the market at 2:30pm when we started making our way out. It was surreal how the time flew by. Every Chinese person had the same vocabulary, "Haro, haro, I give you best price, no problem, Ok, Haro." I never had so many people say "special price for special friend." Some things made me laugh out loud. They say "haro" in such a way that I had t ask the tour guide what they kept saying....he told me that it was English "Hello" and they just throw it randomly into the middle of sentences. "Best price, Haro, no problem, OK, Haro." and so on.
We finally got out of the market after making a few more impulse purchases. I looked at my watch and it was already 2:55. The guide said the shopping centre was about 15 mniutes from the market. So we had barely enough time to grab some McDonalds takeout from across the street and get into a cab, then hope he'd take us directly. We were remarking as we were crossing the street that we hadn't picked up and DVDs, when a guy popped up and said "DVDs?" We didn't really have time, but we went anyways. I guess it must be illegal because he took us down a side street where he had a bicyle parked and he pulled out two nondescript black bags from a locked box on the bike. Then he took us down another side street and in behind a little store where I think he had people watching out for police. We quickly sorted through piles and piles of DVDs picking out potentials. He kept bringing more, but eventually we had to stop. We negotiated quickly and probably paid a little more than we might have had to if we'd had more time, but about $27 Canadian for 15 is not too shabby. (I've tried them and they all work, so that's a plus).
We got back out to the front street at a little after 3, but went down into McDonalds anyways. We ordered a couple value meals to go and snapped off a few pictures. Then as we came out of McDonalds I saw a group of people getting out of a taxi, so I jogged over with my huge backpack full of crap (feeling like I waas on the Amazing Race) and got to the cab just in time . I wasn't too worried. I figured that given the history of the group there would be at least a couple people late at the meeting spot. It turns out i was wrong as everyone was there early and they were waiting for us. We got into the cab at exactly 3:15 and by some miracle the shopping centre was quite close by. We stepped out of the cab only one minute late (some might even call that "on-time"). Anyhow, we managed to get all the things done that we had wanted without annoying the others on the tour. Although I'm surprised I didn't get sick after eating McDonalds with my dirty hands in the taxi. I tried a little spit shine, but I'm not sure how well that worked. :-s
We got to the airport in time for our 6pm flight, but of course it wasn't until after we went through security that we found out that our flight was delayed 2 hours (Nice!). So, we got to spend 4 hours in the Beijing airport. The only consolation was that the flight was direct. We talked about getting some beers, but they were obscenely priced at $6 for a small bottle. It wasn't until about two hours later that somebody got the bright idea of buying the beers from the duty free shop where they were less than a dollar and just drinking them in the terminal. It sounded good to me so I went off and picked up a 6 pack to share with my brother and James, who had no money because he had lost his wallet after the night club. (I wondered if the little girl giving him a hug had anything to do with that, but he said he thinks he remembers having it in the cab)
We realized that we were going to arrive after the last bus to our apartment had gone, but I managed to get ahold of my girlfriend, who was nice enough to drive out to the airport saving us from a $40+ cab ride (isn't she sweet). We got back at about 1am.,,tired, but I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Overall, I really enjoyed Beijing. I got ripped off a few times, but as far as being a tourist goes it wasn't too bad. Beijing may be a little too touristy, I hear that it's nothing like the rest of China. It's the place that most tourists go to, so it's kept very clean compared to other towns scattered around China. I found it fairly comparable to Korea, except that the people in Korea in general speak English much better. I'd gladly go back again, although maybe next time I'll see Shanghai. (BTW: If you managed to read this all, I apologize for making it so long, but I had so much fun I didn't want to forget anything)
