China-Day 2: Beijing

When they served breakfast we got to talking with the young man and woman sitting beside us in Business Class. Their names were Amelia and Jordon, and their dad works for BA, so they were able to fly standby like Kelly used to do with United. By some amazing twist of fate, it turned out that Amelia is starting at our company on the 18th. We landed about 5:20am local time, and went through customs. We met our personal guide, Lily, who was waiting for us at Arrivals. We then got in our car and were taken to our hotel. Since we got there before 7am, our room was not yet ready, so we had to wait in the beautiful lobby until they provided us our room key. The room is large and very lovely, and Christian and I promptly fell asleep. We woke up at 1:30pm, showered and dressed, and went out to experience Beijing. We were summoned a cab and went directly to a large indoor marketplace that Amelia had recommended, one of the most famous in Beijing. Kelly bought A LOT. We used the oppurtunity to purchase presents for quite a few people, plus a few for ourselves. Luckily, we ran into Amelia and Jordon there. We spent literally hours in one of the specialty shops, HappyTimeFunBuyNotExpensiveGoodQuality Store, looking at thousands and thousands of choices whilst having some pieces designed to our exact specifications. Bargaining in Beijing requires a good sense of humor, knowledge of the rules of the game, and a very very hard shell. Luckily, Kelly possesses all of these in droves. We were able to buy literally hundreds of pounds worth of stuff for considerably less. We found Jordon in one of the silk shops surrounded by young women who worked there. We wanted to buy 3 silk, hand embroidered shirts, but they wanted far too much for them. Kelly and the manager went head to head for 15 minutes, vehamently arguing over the price. In the end, Kelly got the exact price she wanted. At 7pm the market closed, so we all took a cab, with our many bags, to a gorgeous Chinese restaurant Amelia knew of called the Purple Vine, where we feasted, and we mean feasted, for about $50 (£28). Four of us. Neither of us could be more pleased with our first day then we are. We had the most amazing time, joking and laughing with the locals and having the very best experience.