Salutations from Beijing. I have been given the honor of writing the post about our weekend. and i begin by saying that we have been learning so much here in china and have been able to see a different side of Chinese culture.
The weekend started off like any other in that we had no idea what we were going to do until we actually got into the car. After a series of votes we decided that the first place we were going to visit was the Forbidden City. Again. Personally i was all for the second trip. The first time we went to the ancient home of the emperor i had felt as if i had missed out on some of it because we were only there for about 45 minutes. So upon arriving we took this opportunity to take pictures together and to gain a greater appreciation for the ancient city and its amazing architecture. Hunger struck us after our long and laborious rounds through the city of old and we decided that the only thing that could satisfy our hunger at that point was some real authentic Chinese KFC. Luckily for us there were two KFC's within a few blocks of each other in either direction. So after a hearty meal at KFC we decided that shopping was the next necessary task on the list.
We made our way back to the Pearl Market, which was the last market we had gone to while the rest of the class was here and started shopping. After 4 weeks in China i must say we have become quite good at bargaining. During our last transaction at the market the man selling us the items actually started buckling over in pain as we handed him the money and his parting words were "are you a woman?" Needless to say that to be called a woman in any situation, while being male, is not normally seen as a good thing we took it as a compliment toward our newly learned bargaining skills. The next stop on our list was a computer market that Ting had heard about from some fellow co-workers.
Looking out onto this new market we could tell it wouldn't not be the same as the ones we had been to before. Upon walking it we could see signs and for Apple products and for computers of every brands. Any part of a computer you can think of could be found in one of those small shops. But much to our dismay we were struck with the unfortunate truth that at this market you could not bargain for the products and to make matters worse the prices of the items were unnecessarily high considering that most of the products were made in china. Needles to say we did not stay at this market for very long and decided instead go see a movie.
This being our second weekend in Beijing we decided to do some research as to which movie we were going to see during the weekend. Must to our dismay we had learned early on in the week that the movie we were so eagerly anticipating would not be showing until June 26th which meant that we would have to wait until the following week to see the movie. So we had decided on a suitable substitute and went into the theaters hoping that we might it would be in English. While we were buying our tickets though we noticed a poster for the movie we had been dying to see while here in China, saying that it would start playing in the theater the 20th of June. We jumped for joy at this discovery and ran to get in line to buy three tickets and before we knew it we were waiting for the movie to begin. As we sat hoping and praying that it would be in English the movie started and we rejoiced to find that it was indeed in our native tongue. We sat with big grins on our faces and enjoyed the film we had been so eagerly awaiting: Kongfu Panda.
Once the movie ended up decided that some more food was necessary to continue on and made a stop to one of our favorite places to eat while here in China: KFC. After another hearty meal we made our way for a nice dessert at Dairy Queen and went to go play arcade games for a while. This concluded our hectic Saturday and upon getting our fill of arcade games we decided to call it a night and head home.
For our Sunday we all agreed upon going to church. We enjoyed last weeks service but we wanted to see what the English service was like. The sermon to our surprise was about the up coming Olympics and how the games are only here for 16 days and then in an instant they are gone and the Reverend asked us the question what do we do next? After the great service we headed out to get some lunch and afterwards get our head cut. With the help of one of Ting's family friends we were able to find a place that had a pizza buffet and a hair salon in the same building. Nathaniel and I were the only ones who ended up getting our haircut. Once our hair was cut and styled I remembered that i needed to buy a suitcase for the way back home but first we decided to go watch another movie.
At the mall we ran upstairs hoping to be able to catch a movie that was in English. Once in line we asked the cashier if there were anymore movies that were in English with Chinese subtitles. It turns out that we watched all three English movies while here in china. So instead of watching a movie again Ross and Ting decided to go play video games while i decided to go walk around the mall. After noticing that everything in china is just a tad bit too small for me i headed back to the arcade just in time to watch the guys beat the game. It was joyous moment for all and we ran out to see if we still had time to go buy my suitcase.
The market we decided to go to this time was the Xiu Shui Jie Market. Once inside we headed off to find a suitcase. Inside one of the shops I had a two female shopkeepers corner me and not let me leave. Ting had to help me get out of the situation and i was able to leave alive but still without a suit case. we wondered around the market looking for someone to sell me a suitcase for the price i wanted. We applied a new form of bargaining where we told the shopkeepers that we had already been in china for a long time and gave them our price and asked if they could sell it to us or not. It worked and i ended up getting a large suitcase for 125 yuan. We went looking around for more deals and wound up in a sunglasses shop. We had been to this shop before and they had refused to give us the price that we had asked for so we were hoping that this second time would go better for us. We were there for about an hour and in that time we got called several names ranging from "hard", "woman", "playboy", to "crazy." But in the end we got the goods for the price we wanted. In all it was a good day but rather tiring and so we parted ways and headed back to our homes.
THE END
Miguel Alecio
