Day Three: No More Haggling for Me!

Monday, December 28, 2009

WE ATE SCORPIONS!! And Beijing Duck, but scorpions!! How crazy is that? Pretty crazy, I'd say. They were BBQ-y and crunchy, like potato chips... shaped like scorpions. Not necessarily the highlight, but definitely pretty high up there.

First things first. We met Tony for an Indian food lunch experience - oh so tasty! Then we had to go to the police station and register because we stayed in China for more than seven days. Tony had to come and show the policio his resident card and a note from the school stating that he was employed there, and say that he was the resident we were staying with. Apparently hostels and hotels do this, too, you just may not know about it. China's always watching.

Afterward, Briana and I cabbed (solo!) over to Olympic Park, and while we encountered a few problems with the ticketing, we made it into the stadium and it looked... well, like a stadium. We walked around it, went to the top, then started for the side where it looked like you could enter into the Winter Wonderland thing they had going on in the field - they were blowing snow, there was sledding and happiness... we wanted in. On the way, we found the IOC Chairmen Wax Museum which was a bit strange, but heated inside so we lingered. The Winter Wonderland was an extra charge so we decided against it and made our way out of the stadium.

I was taking pictures of Briana jumping in front of the entrance when a lady photographer grabbed my arm and motioned that she wanted a picture. I thought she wanted me to take a picture of her and the four men she was with, so I said "okay," but then she grabbed one of the men and stood him next to me. I called B over and we flanked the man for the photo. Then another one wanted a photo, so I had the woman take one with my camera, too. I guess Beijing gets a lot of tourists from Southern China (especially in the winter to see the snow) and smaller villages that might not get so much Western traffic.

After that we headed to Wangfuijing Street, a shopping district, via the subway! Which was oh so clean and futuristic in a spaceship-like way; an open tube that sparkled and shined and had televisions announcing stops and showed the world's ugliest animals every few stops or so. It was pretty fast, too. WFJ is where we had the scorp, too. We walked around the "authentic" Chinese market area, did some haggling, got swindled into buying candy without even realizing what was happening - so fast it happened! Good saleslady! It was only $2 split between me and B, so we figured whatever and that we'd give it to our kids.

Oh man! Then I was looking at some red bracelets and this lady selling spoke some English and was "helping" me haggle, by holding my arm - very tightly, kind of making it impossible to walk away. It was hard to look at the merch when she was all up in my face; she would say a high price and I would say "no" and start to walk away only to have her pull me back and ask me to name a price, "What do you call?" then she would repeat the price I gave and laugh in my face, I'm talking right up close in my face (Western space/personal bubble limits don't seem to exist here). Eventually I talked her down to 50 yuan, but I only had 20s so I gave her 60 and when I asked for change, she started to go for it, but then gave me a smaller bracelet for for 10. Oh geeze. Oh. And another bracelet seller pleaded with me when I told her I needed to think about the price, "No thinking! Buy now!" The marketplace was definitely a heart-racing experience in dodging the arms that would reach out to grab you and haggling for your life. The salespeople are very persistent in these markets. Oh, and the arm-holding face-laughing lady told me that a sign on their booth said, "good prices for foreigners" yeah right, like I'm going to believe that a sign written in Chinese is to welcome foreigners...

(Waving starfish. You want? Or maybe some petrified lizards?)

(AHHHH!!! These were not the scorpions we ate!!)

(We had the babies. "Why am I doing this again?")

(For my children's children.)

It was nearing 6, so B and I headed to Beijing's largest bookstore to wait for Tony and Xie Yichen and then we went and ate some duck. Oy. But on the way is when we had the scorpion appetizers. They sold starfish, sea horses, silk worms (maybe), cockroaches (I think), BIG scorpions, and grasshoppers among other things that you could fry and try. Oh, China. And that duck. Man, we ate a lot of duck... we got two. I ate half a duck and ate its brains, and had heart in a dumpling. It kind of grosses me out a little to think about it now, probably because we were so full after. Oy. And I guess the duck skin is the best part, so they say. It was the first part of the duck served and we each popped a piece in our mouth and bit down with a crunch and a splash of hot water (really grease, though) gushed into our cheeks. Ummm... yum? The duck was pretty tasty, though I wish we woulda stopped after one; we wrapped the duck meat in thin pancakes with BBQ-ish sauce and scallions, then washed it all down with some jasmine tea.

A pretty good day, if I do say. PS - this song kept running through my head throughout the trip! Eeks!