655Jack: The Jasons in China: Day 1

Goodbye, Golden Gate. and hello...

Beijing
September 1, 2007

Ni Hao from Beijing

The end of our first day here in China and all I can say is this place is fantastic As you can see from the pictures below, we visited the Great Wall but as this was our free day, our new friend Blandina who works for UNICEF helped us hire a driver to take us to the less touristy part of the Great Wall at Mutinayu. What a great chance to see the wall without the crowds.

China is a vacationer's dream. People are extremely polite, the streets and avenues spotless and one never feels unsafe, no matter what time of day or night it is. And it's cheap! After our visit to the Great Wall, we visited the Silk Market. But don't let the name fool you. It was seven floors of every single expensive brand clothing, shoes, watches, at you could think of, all at rock bottom prices. A lot of the stuff was fake but as fake goes, it looked pretty real; D&G, rada, LV, Rolex, Gucci, North Face, Polo, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike. Whereas Santee Alley in downtown LA is all about purses, this place had everything else including everything above and more: shoes, designer sheets, underwear, backpacks, etc. As we walked through the aisles, the salespeople would tug at you, hold your hand and say "Mister? Miss? Come buy!" It was actually funny because they were all extremely friendly and eager to help you find whatever you wanted but most times you would walk on buy, clearly not interested.

After 45 minutes of being tugged, pulled and yelled at we'd had enough. But if shopping is what you like to do, come to Beijing and the Silk Market. No better bargain shopping around.