Last hours in Beijing

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Our train to Tibet left this evening so we planned to take the day easy and get ready for our trip. But that's not exactly how the day panned out!

We started the day in the electronic district of the city trying to buy Brian a memory card. Didn't think this was that big of an errand but it turned out to be rather memorable! We walked into a store and immediately noticed that there were about 75 employees and we seemed to be the only customers in the store. We immediate set upon by the masses and it was insane. Every step you took there would be different person grabbing your arm and saying the few words of English they knew - "Hello," "laptop computer," "you're my friend," "Sony" - it was insane! Finally we told a lady what we were looking for and she proceeded to take us up to another floor to her store (turns out the other store was just a showroom). We were the only people in there and they sat us down at a table for "negotiations." This meant a half hour of Orion trying to bargain and get the salepeople to bring us out the product. It was seriously more difficult than buying a car!

After that experience we dis the Summer Palace. This is a pretty plae just outside of Beijing. A former emperor built it as a summer house to get away from the city's heat and now it's a park. It was really pretty and from the palace's hills you got great views of the city.

After that we headed to the Silk Market to do some shopping. This was another surreal expeience that highlighted the differences in our cultures. The salespeople would do anything to make a sale. This could mean everything from physically restraining you as you tried to walk away to telling you how pretty you were or that you had such wonderful taste. And bargaining was required for everything since we were given the American price (usually about 5 times less than we actually paid!). It took us a little wgile to get the hang of it but after awhile we were understanding the system. Brian had to be dragged away when it was time to go home!

Next up was rushing to the train station to get begin the 48-hour train ride to Tibet. As we tried to get into the train station and go through security, we learned that the Chinese don't queue. After a bit of pushing we made it inside and before long we on the train and starting the next leg of our trip.

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