Silk Street

Yesterday and today I spent shopping. I hadn't been planning to, but I suppose it's inevitable when you go to a big city with so many options. 

Since my friend still has a lot of work to do for her school, we went to Sanlitan to do some work at a cafe. There is a shopping center, with stores like Uniqlo and Kate Spade, among others. This area has a lot of foreigners apparently, and many embassies are located here too. We went to a cafe called Wagas, which was priced like New York. After a little slice of home, we left to go shopping.

We went to Silk Street, which is a very large shopping center that is famous for counterfeit goods, among other things. I wanted to buy some Chinese traditional clothing with a modern twist, and ended up finding two gowns that I liked. Ever since the Chinese Art meets Western Fashion exhibit at the Met, I've wanted to get a dress with fabric similar to the pattern of Chinese porcelain. I found a qipao like that, though I probably need to have it altered to fit better. The second dress that I bought was with the silk fabric that qipaos are often made of, but in a western style dress. In this area, you can usually cut the price down to less than one quarter of ther asking price. There was a beautiful Chinese embroidered purse that I wanted, which they asked for over 400 Rmb for; I ended up buying it for 85 Rmb, which is about 14 USD.

For lunch, we went to a hot pot place that also provides free hand treatments and manicures. They also have board games, so the three of us played Chinese checkers. I lost. 

After lunch, we went to Nanluoguxiang, and older alley that is now lined with stores for shopping. It is near the drum tower, which I have not been to yet. There are many older buildings, and the streets are narrow. Many eateries too, so it reminded me of the Night Market in Taiwan, but with less food. Unfortunately, it had been rainy so the streets were pretty gross.

Today, I had a very nice Chinese breakfast, of congee, fruit and some vegetables, and a sesame ball. This sesame ball warrants more attention. I remember once I had asked my dad at a store whether the sesame balls there were good, and he had said they are always good, he has never had a bad sesame ball. Sesame balls are fairly hard to mess up--its rice flour dough, filled with red bean, rolled in sesame and deep fried. I normally don't like the filling because it is too sweet. The one in Beijing however, is not very sweet, and has whole red beans mixed in. It's amazing. I took a photo, which I will upload later.

I met my friend near the Beijing Zoo, to go to the wholesale markets. There, I saw another dress that had the exact same pattern as the qipao I had bought yesterday, but in Western Style. I liked it a lot, but I had already bought one and I wasn't sure if I should get another that was so similar. I stood there agonizing over the decision, and then I realized that the dress was only 5 dollars US--so I just bought it. 

For lunch, we had dim sum at a hotel, probably one of the best dim sum that I have had. This hotel also had the nicest public toilets I have seen in all of Beijing. Unfortunately I forgot the name of both. 

I did not go to the Beijing Zoo, because my friend had already described to me the conditions that the animals live in. They have dogs on display, in small cages supposedly, and in general the animals are kept in cramped quarters. As a result, I did not want to visit, because it would be sad, and it's not really something I would like to support.

For dinner, we had Korean food by the zoo, and went to Carrefour, a grocery store and mega market. I really like supermarkets abroad, because I'm curious as to what they sell. I had another lotion faux pas. My friend has very good Chinese, or so I thought, because I asked her for help identifying some things. She told me that I had two bottles of conditioner, but when I checked with the sales lady, she said they were both shampoo.

"Is this lotion?" I asked my friend.

"Yes," she said confidently. "Just in case, just try some."

We squeezed some on our hands.

"Yep, definitely lotion," she said.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "It feels sticky."

It turned out that it was soap. It smelled very nice though.

Cooking Cuttlefish

Nanluoguxiang