Travels in the 10/40 Window; Cambodia; Philippines; China; Israel; Egypt; Japan: Shopping And Eating In Beijing

A leisurely evening stroll in Tiananmen Square became a shopping spree for many in our group.
It was our last day in Beijing. We went out before dinner to see the sights, and the touts swooped upon the Americans in our group like vultures after a fresh kill! Hah, Vivien and I had been in Tiananmen Square a few times (looking for taxis, looking for the Forbidden City etc) and never encountered a single tout. I didn't know such a species exist! This time, walking with Mark and Joe and John and Dan, the vendors made me feel like I'm a poor cousin from some insignificant village down south as they ignored me totally (Ahem, don't you know my bag's full of RMB?), and went after the big, tall, well fed Americans! And our friends fell for it, poor things! Someone (was it Mark?) ended up with Mao's red book (cheap, is it?), and another (John or Dan or both) purchased a stack of a dozen Olympic 2008 caps. And then the Tiananmen police van appeared and chased the touts all over the place. Ooh, I wished I had my video cam!

If you like this post, please click here to subscribe to the full RSS feed.

Excuse me, how much did you say that is?
8 for 100 RMB? Woh, that's cheap!

After the shopping at Tiananmen Square, we headed for dinner, and we didn't give our Western friends a choice of fast food or Chinese food. PP and Uncle Robert walked on ahead, and everyone followed, including the more persistent touts after they had escaped the police (Watch? Stamps? Red book? Name your price!) A while later, we found out that Mark had been relieved of 100 RMB, in exchange for seven cheap watches. It was a good thing I hadn't gone shopping with them at the Pearl Market, goodness knows what they had bought there!

We reached the Chinese Muslim restaurant which was just across the road from our hotel, and ordered the hot pot dinner. There were lots of Chinese Muslim restaurants in Beijing, and apparently these places could be identified by some sort of green logo or words on their signage. Pork is not on the menu at all. There did not seem to be any restriction on alcohol consumption, though, but of course we didn't have any. Mineral water was the usual beverage we ordered at all our meals, and sometimes Coke.

Too much eating

This was our last dinner in Beijing, and as usual, Uncle Robert ordered too much food.

The next morning, after a good breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and the bus took us to the airport for our domestic flight to Baotou City to begin the inner Mongolia leg of the tour.

at the airport