Last Two Days in Beijing

Relaxing after the Wall

After a fairly tiring day hiking the Wall, we decided Friday was going to be a bit more laid back. We lazed around in the morning and Laura discovered the hotel's 25yuan (~$3) breakfast buffet where she made several trips for fruit, juice, etc. We've been a bit lacking in the fruits & veg department since arrival.

We decided our next stop after Beijing is Pingyao and dealt with getting train tickets for a Saturday night sleeper train. Then we headed off to the area north of the Forbidden City. Very pretty and a bit more tourisity with several preserved palaces, temples, etc. We just wandered and finally ended up at trendy travellers bar where we played cards and drank beer. When a guide book photographer came in to photograph the place we were happy to act as models! We left the bar and wandered throught the neighborhood to the metro - this was the trendiest little part of town we'd seen! Felt like we were in the Bucktown of Beijing!

Our next stop was the Sichuan Government Restaurant. We'd scoped this place out earlier in the week after reading that it had the best sichuan food. Upon our arrival, we saw that there was a decent sized line outside. Additionally, we new from the guide book that there is no English menu. After feeling very very out of place and not being able to communicate that we even wanted a table or how long the wait would be, we headed to another Sichuan restaurant we had found that had advertisements in English so we would hopefully find an English menu. After waiting for awhile we were seated...and that is where the experience began.

Mike likes Sichuan food. And by liking Sichuan food that really means he just likes Sichuan shrimp in garlic and spicy chili sauce. Unfortunately, this was not on the menu. But plenty of other goodies were such as "pot-roasted fat gut" and "goose feet in abalone sauce". I'm sorry but anything that looks like animal feet grosses me out and will not be crossing my lips. We contemplated running but in the end finally settled on getting a couple entrees that did not look too terrifying and they turned out to be pretty good.

Last day in Beijing

On our last day in Beijing, we set out to purchase a few things in the morning. Since Beijing is known for having the best prices on tourist and consumer goods. We got some tshirts and Laura was very tempted by a Lacoste polo shirt for 30y (~$3.75) but it didn't fit.

We then went to purchase a couple traditional paintings. This is where MO512 Negotiations class came into great use. After determining which paintings we wanted we strategized for a bit. We managed to get the price down to half of what we had been quoted two days previously, an effort we were pleased with. Mike seemed to take more joy in the negotiation than actually getting the paintings!

In the afternoon, we walked to the Temple of Heaven. The park there was nice, but unfortunately you could not go on the grass. The outing involved a lot of walking and we were both rather broken by the time we got back to the hostel. Fortunately, it was nothing a 2 yuan beer could not cure.

Then to the train station and on to Pingyao!

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