Karen and I departed Singapore shortly after 1am Wednesday morning and arrived in Beijing at 7am. While I was prepared for cold weather, seeing snow next to the runway was a bit suprising. It was also a nice change to see fields around the airport as it's been awhile since I've viewed empty land with no high-rises filling the horizon. It had snowed the day before we arrived but it didn't stick around long because we had nice temperatures during our stay. What a relief for two women accustomed to tropical weather!
Ni hao, Beijing!
The hotel driver met us at the gate and escorted us to a large Audi to take us into the city. We wondered how long it would take for us to encounter the overwhelming garlic scent that we often find in Singapore and that question was answered when entering the car we immediately nicknamed the "Garlic Express." It turns out that cold weather really doesn't soften the aroma at all. And we couldn't figure out what all the horn honking was about. We were traveling down a highway with minimal traffic with our driver constantly honking the horn -- usually two short beeps at a time. At this point I was just thankful that the Chinese didn't bring that custom with them to Singapore because it would give me a complex while driving around town. After four days of this experience, we speculated that they use a car horn like one might use a bicycle bell -- any time they felt the need to announce their presence, they honked. Passing a car, passing a group of pedestrians on the side of the road. It was as if they assumed everyone else in the general vicinity was blind and needed an auditory warning.
We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Beijing which is located right in the middle of tourist attractions and connects to Oriental Plaza mall - I would highly recommend it for tourists. After settling into our room, we headed straight for breakfast. While the hotel employees spoke English, some spoke so fast that we often had to ask them to repeat themselves. During breakfast, we ordered water and when the waitress brought us two glasses, I began to wonder if it was safe to drink. We knew not to drink the tap water because our Western systems couldn't handle it. So I attempted to ask the waitress if the water was filtered or if it was tap water. Her response was, "Yes, you can drink it." That didn't really answer my question. The glasses remained untouched. After that, we carried bottled water with us everywhere we went.
That afternoon we made our way to the Pearl Market, a 4-story building near our hotel that offers pearls but also a wide variety of other goods. Entering the first floor, we found all the electronics, watches and accessories that one could ever want. Of course, none of it was real. Karen bought a lovely Rolex watch for about $10 USD. The entire afternoon held those kinds of shopping deals. We had a fabulous time. Here's how a typical transaction transpired: I walk up to a particular stall and the sales lady immediately begins asking what I'm looking for. If I find something I like, I ask for her price. She pulls out a calculator and shows me her asking price. I remove a zero off the end of her price and type it into her calculator. She makes some comment like, "Lady, are you crazy?" and then types in a signifcantly lower number than her original price. This goes back and forth for a minute or two until I give my best offer. She still maintains that she can't go that low so I repeat that it's my highest offer and turn around to walk off. I get about 5 steps away and she yells out a price about 10 renminbi higher than my offer. I turn around and repeat my highest offer. The majority of the time she then accepts my offer and we finish our transaction. I went through this process all afternoon and rarely spent more than 35 rmb (about $5 USD) on any item. Watches, pens, wallets, purses, jewelry - if I could buy it for 35 rmb or lower, I was a happy shopper. It's all fake so who knows how long it will last. But if I spend less than $5 on it, then I won't be too upset later. My biggest splurge was a Coach wallet -- I dropped $8 US on it.
Karen was searching for Louis Vuitton bags and that's a whole different deal because the vendors have to be careful about showing those counterfeit items in open. Louis must actually make an effort to stop the sales of these items because we ended up following our friendly sales lady, Coco, to her "office." She had a storage room in a building next to the market and escorted us over there to shop. 3 handbags and a suitcase later, Karen walked away a satisfied client.
Saleswoman, Coco, and Karen, sporting her new Louis duffel
We ventured into the adjacent mall in seach of dinner and ended up at a Sichuan restaurant. Living in Singapore helped us quite a bit in the food department. We easily ordered some dinner but the drinks proved to be the challlenge. The drink menu was entirely in Chinese and aside from a picture of a beer pitcher, we had no clue what our options were. We tried to simply order "Beer" but the waitress didn't understand. Managers came over to help translate and just when we thought they understood us, they brought over a blue box and asked if that was what we were asking for. We never figured out what was inside the box but since we've never seen beer packaged that way, we assumed they had gotten the order wrong and returned it. After much patience and persistence, we got our beers and they were delicious. It was the local brew -- Yan Jing. I typed the brand into my phone in hopes that the next waiter would recognize it if I didn't pronounce it right. Our entire dinner with the two large beers cost us about $25 USD. We couldn't have 2 beers for that price in Singapore so we were feeling good about Beijing at that moment.
We spotted an ice cream stand on our way back to the hotel and couldn't resist -- after all, we were on vacation. It was some Belgian brand of ice cream but oddly, the flavors were not labeled in any language at all. We asked about one of the flavors and the employee took out a calculator (obviously standard issue if you're selling something in Beijing) and showed us the number 12. Ok, now we know how much the mysery flavor costs. I held up a small spoon and asked if I could have a taste. She understood that request because she flatly replied, "No." We opted for the easily identifiable cookies and cream and went on our way. Yes, if I lived in Beijing, Mandarin would really come in handy!
That sums up our first day in China's capital city. We strategically didn't plan any sightseeing for that day, figuring we'd be tired from our overnight flight and it just seemed like a good plan for us to get our shopping done right away. My first impression of Beijing was that it had something quite noticeably different from Singapore -- LAND. The avenues were wide and stately. The city also looked incredibly clean. I probably should have expected that in a communist capital but I hadn't thought about it. And it seemed more modern than I anticipated. I may have been guilty of that perception Brian had when he arrived in Germany for the first time -- he had envisioned everything in black and white. Beijing was prettier than I had pictured it in my head. Also, we showered and primped before going to the market. When we arrived back at the hotel several hours later, our make-up and hair looked remarkably untouched. We relished the cooler weather with no humidity!
We enjoyed a full night's sleep and were excited to meet our tour guide, James, bright and early Thursday morning. Stay tuned for details from our first full day of sightseeing when we nearly walked our legs off :)
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