Rainy Day in Beijing

Day two was a full on let down. It was raining so I couldn't get to the Great Wall just yet. So I tried to go to the Military Museum, but it and most other museums in Beijing are closed on Mondays. Fantastic. So I spent most of the day hiking to the CCTV and Olympics buildings to take some pretty awful pictures. I also went to the Silk and Pearl markets, but more on them in a second. First I want to give you guys my impressions on China and the Chinese, which I was pretty surprised by.

Most of them are pretty obvious and expected. There are a lot of people. They are all shorter than me, and thus walk slower than me. The one thing I didn't expect is the level of commercialism. Not globalism, commercialism. In the sense that China has brought commercialization to it's own population. Instead of stores like GAP or Burger King, you have Chinese companies and stores doing the same thing. You will see the same clothing store chains, all Chinese. That's not to say their parent or partner corporations are not the same as the GAP, but it seems more like China is moving into that phase of a economic super power. The one where it begins to create it's own monsters of the commercial world, the same as the US and Europe has done. That was just my impression anyway.

Back to the markets, which still retain some of that haggling and deal finding spirit that China is so famous for. I went in looking for sunglasses, and came out with every but. Actually I came out with sunglasses. Fake Oakleys, that I haggled the guy down to $15 from $25. I still got ripped off though, because 24 hours later they broke. And not even when I was wearing them! I put them down in one piece on the desk, woke up from a nap, and there were 3 big cracks in the plastic. Meh, what was I really expecting? Anyway, I also got a 4gb flash drive for about $12 down from $40! I don't know who this girl thought she was selling to, cause I was never paying $40 for a flash drive. I can't imagine she knew I was a CS major, but still.

The markets are fun, but you gotta be careful, and can't be afraid to be firm with the vendors. One girl selling purses grabbed my wrist at one point and started to scream and pull me into their booth. In the middle of a big crowd of people, none of whom thought it was out of the ordinary. They also didn't think it was strange when I ripped my hand away and not so politely told the girl to get lost. In the end it was all fun, and you can find some pretty crazy stuff there.