Thursday Sept 18

Weather

• Another hot one – 30 degrees. The humidity just keeps rising during the days.

Silk Street with JC

• Heidi’s workmate has a brother, JC, that lives in Beijing. We had arranged to meet him and today was the day. He took us to a market, Silk Street. Apparently it used to be a street market but has been moved into a six story building. The main floor is mostly clothing. It seemed pretty chaotic. The vendors are pretty aggressive- “hey lady looky, looky” It was nice to have JC with us. As we moved up the floors the goods changed, posters, tea sets etc. JC bought Gerry an abacus, I bought a Mao poster. The top floors had higher end jewelry stores and seemed to be only frequented by foreigners. We then went down to the basement which sold shoes, handbags and belts. The vendors in the basement made the others seem downright polite. They were all touching and grabbing you to come into their stalls. I tried on a pair of shoes and the clerk got a bit pissy when I didn’t want to buy them.

• JC then took us to a newly opened restaurant close to his work in the NorthWest. Very close to the Beijing Botanical Garden and the Summer Palace. JC ordered far too much food – 7 dishes – so we could try some different items. Some was great and others were just a bit outside our comfort zone! It was very good and we felt bad that we had left so much. We aren’t certain but we think JC had it packaged up and sent to his office so we felt a little better.

Botanical Gardens

• After lunch JC dropped us off at the Botanical Gardens. Very nice and guess what – large! The time of year was not the best for the Gardens. The trees look great in a few weeks when they turn color and the flowers from May to August look the best. There was a wide variety with loads of water features and a conservatory – which we avoided since it was hot and humid enough outside! Check out the spiders we spotted while walking around. They look scary.

The Place

• We were feeling a little beat but decided to go for a quick tour of a mall called The Place. Just a mall as with other brand new malls but this one has a huge LED screen over top the street 40 or 50 feet above. They have all kinds of fantasy like videos going on it.