Summer in Beijing - Part 3

Day 5 (Thursday, August 2nd). This was our busiest day by far. First we went to the Lama Temple which is Beijing’s largest temple. Most of the tourists here came to pray and offer incense to Buddha in the many halls of the temple. The coolest part was the 18 meter high(!) statue of the Maitreya Buddha carved out of a single piece of sandalwood. Unfortunately, they don’t let you take pictures inside any of the temple buildings, not that I could’ve fit it all in a single frame anyways. Here are some pictures of the temple nonetheless.

From there we headed to the Temple of Heaven Park (built in the early 1400’s) which is where emperors would come to pray for good harvests. As with most of the places we visited in Beijing, it was crawling with tourists so our pictures aren’t as cool as they could be. The park itself is huge and when you’re inside the walls, walking around, it’s hard to believe you’re in the middle of Beijing.

From there we walked over to the Pearl Market to do some shopping. Haggling skills were definitely needed and as a general rule of thumb, they say to never pay more than half the first price offered by the vendor. This place was absolutely crazy. It’s like a flea market but all the vendors are yelling at you trying to get you to look at their stuff. They’re like vultures coming at you from everywhere, “Hallo, hallo, you need shoes? I give you good price, very cheap!” and “hallo, sir, just looking over here!” If you stop, even for a second to look at their stuff, they’re all over you. They’ll tell you anything to get you to buy their stuff and some it is hilarious. One woman told me that she gives the “real” price to Americans, but for me, “much cheaper” and she had no idea where we were from (she guessed Sweden). After it was all said and done she tried to get me to buy her an ice cream because I talked her down so much. It’s going to be so hard to buy things at Korean prices now (let alone Canadian).

Day 6 (Friday, August 3rd). This was our last full day in Beijing and we decided to go to Beihai Park which was the center of Beijing until the Forbidden City was built. It’s a huge park taken up mostly by Beihai Lake but there’s an island in the middle with some cool temples and such.

Next we went to the Silk Market to buy more cheap stuff. It was pretty much the same as the Pearl Market only this one specialized in silk rather than pearls. This place was also a little classier than the Pearl Market and so the vendors would try to gouge you even more than usual. Michelle and I were interested in 2 t-shirts from this one lady, so we asked how much. She said “for anyone else, I charge more, but for you, 480 Yuan”. We felt really special being offered 2 t-shirts for almost CAD$70. I countered with an offer of 25 and we finally settled at 40 Yuan (CAD$5.50).

Day 7 (Saturday, August 4th). We didn’t do much today as we had to be at the airport relatively early to catch our flight. We decided to check out the Museum of Chinese History as it was only a short walk from our hostel. Unfortunately it was closed which they say is not a rare occurrence. Apparently they like to revise history a lot based on current events.

A few other notes about our trip…

China is definitely the place to visit if you want your money to go far. Everything is way cheaper than I could have expected. 5 Yuan ($0.70) would bye you a big bottle of Tsingtao Beer (almost twice the size of a regular beer bottle) at our hostel; 1 Yuan ($0.14) was enough to get you on a bus or bye you a bottle of water from a street vendor. Even a taxi going half way across the city cost us less than $3.00. It was amazing.

We never did run into any pickpocket problems. I was probably a little over cautious because of all the things we had read about Beijing (and warnings in our hostel!), but oh well. For the first couple days I felt like Homer when the Simpsons go to New York, like everyone was trying to screw me (which was probably true) or like everyone was trying to sell me something I didn’t want (which actually was true). You couldn’t walk down the street for 2 minutes without somebody offering you something. Rickshaw rides, postcards, bottles of water, Mao watches (which had a smiling Mao on the face waving to you – they were actually pretty awesome, I wish I bought one), you name it. Never in my life have so many people tried so hard to get me to buy stuff that I didn’t want or need.

That was part of what made it such an awesome place to be. Everything about the city was so different from anything I was used to. I was especially glad to see Beijing before the Olympics as a lot of places were under construction in preparation for the games. There were also a lot of areas that were going to be levelled so that newer and “nicer” areas could be put up and shown to the world. It will be interesting to compare what I saw on the trip with the things I will see during the Olympics in 2008.

All in all it was an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone.