Shopping!

On Saturday I woke up early to head out to the Panjiayuan (or Dirt) Market to get in some shopping. I first had to find food, and as it was to early for breakfast in the hotel, I went onto the street looking for grub. I walked by a tricycle that had a stove on the back of it. They were cooking pancakes with eggs in them. I ordered two for 2 yuan. Pretty fricking good. I found a store down the street and bought some strawberry yogurt and had breakfast at the side of the road. I took a cab to Panjiayuan and started perousing. The guidbook says you're supposed to ignore the 1/2 rule when bargaining, things can be as much as 10 times cheaper than what the vendors start out at. But I'm a terrible bargainer, I think I got a good bargain once in my life. I walked around and looked at all the stuff to buy, lots of silver (which I like), jade, knives, pots, glasses, everything you could not want. The market consists of an outer ring of stores with a covered inner area with about 30 rows of vendors. You could spend all day and all of your money here. I quickly spent all of my money. I even went into my reserve money that's stashed under my insoles of my shoes. I went back to the hotel to drop off my booty and find an ATM so I could buy food. I walked to a bank down the street and then back towards the subway. I was getting a bit hungry and saw a hole in the wall restaurant with those steam baskets. She was selling shumai (or something like it.) I wanted just a few, so I held out four fingers. She went to get another basket or two. I waved at her and pointed out 4 dumplings. She smiled and said no. It took me a second and realized you get the whole basket of dumplings. For 3 yuan (40 cents.) I sat down outside and wolfed down the basket of grub. The lady kept looking out and smiling, so I'd give her the thumbs up. I asked for another basket, since how often do you eat in China? I headed to the subway to get to the massage place that Gerry had told me about. The subway exit lead out to a shopping mall, it was like being back in Hong Kong. They even had a TCBY. As soon as I got outside I heard a "Hello, sir?" and saw these two college students walking towards me. They said they were practicing their English and would like to spend some time with me, because I seemed "so friendly" Which is funny, I'm totally not friendly when people come up to me and start speaking in English - they usually want something. We talked for a bit and I said I had a massage to go to but that we could get a beer afterwords. They nodded and showed me to the massage place. I told them I'd meet them in a bit over an hour. The massage ladies showed me to a room and put out a silk pajama set. I figured out that the silk was so they wouldn't have to use massage oil. An hour later and much more refreshed, I headed out to the street. The two students were there and started talking about their art school and that today was the last showing before something or other. "We just want to get your advice on our paintings." And then it'd be beer time. So I went with them back into the building and up a few floors. We went into a little studio and I immediatly wanted to leave. They were pretty nice so I didn't want to be rude so I looked at their paintings - some of which were really good. Then they talked about discounts and how it'd be a cultural exchange. I told them I wasn't looking to buy any paintings and hit the door. I headed west towards Tianeman square to find the famous Peking duck restaurant. There was a gourgeous sunset, one of those orange suns you only get with the lucky combination of smog and more smog. At the square there were huge crowds standing around waiting for the flag to be brought down. A large group of soldiers came out of the Forbidden City and marched to the flag. Ten minutes later the group marched back across the street and into the City. I spent the next 20 minutes trying to find the Qianmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. According to my map it was right in the open and easy to find. I had to ask like 3 people (including a Japanese man that wasn't thrilled I thought he was Chinese.) When I got across from the restaurant a gal came up to me and started speaking in English. I acted like I didn't speak English and talked to her in Spanish. I don't think I fooled anyone. She told me that Quanjude was too full and too expensive and that I should go to this other restaurant. I smiled, waved and trotted across the street. This place had a window in front of where the chefs cut the duck into small pieces for dinner. It looked pretty good. They even had a take out area with boxes of duck. I got a seat with some locals and ordered my duck. A minute later the food arrived. You got a plate of crispy duck meat, some sauce and little pancakes. You putthe sauce on the pancake and put the duck on that, rolled it all up and had a little meal. It was damn tasty. I almost ordered another plate, but I was getting full. Damn stomach. I had an hour before the acrobatic troupe started so I decided to walk to the auditorium a mile or so south. I was noticing most of their streets are pretty dark, they have street lights, but it seems as if the thick air just swallows the light and leaves it gloomy. I'd normally be concerned walking down strange streets at night in a foreign country, but I kept seeing little kids running around and figured it'd couldn't be that bad. I got to the auditorium a little early so I bought my ticket and went in search of a coke. At a little stand selling roasted nuts I asked for a coke. But I spied a beer next to the coke, so I got that instead. I asked the lady in my own little motion language if it was ok to drink the beer on the street. I sat in the VIP section where they brought you tea during the performance. The performers did some of the most amazing stuff you'd ever see, it was just like in Cirque De Sulei, just cheaper and closer. They had a guy on a 6 foot tall unicycle, which was good in itself, who could jump rope on it, stay in one place with one foot in the air. Then he'd put a cup on his other foot, flick it into the air and it'd land on his head. Then he put two cups on his foot, flicked them into the air and they'd both land correctly on the original cup. He kept doing this with more and more cups. The cups on his foot would not be cupped together, but instead one cup facing up, the other down and so on. I'm not sure how he got them all to rotate correctly in the air to land all cupped on his head. This is when I took out my camera and turned the video on. I'm pretty sure they didn't want people taking videos, so I held it low and ended up ruining most of the shots. :( But I have a few cool ones. They had a gal who would balance a tray of shot glasses (that had trays of shot glasses on top of them) as she moved around the stage. Then was the chinese yo-yos (the things that look like tow plungers stuck to each other.) And guys with large bamboo flags where they'd flip around and catch the flags before they landed. And then the pole walkers, those guys are cool. The run up a pole and jump to the other one, slide around just holding on with their legs. One guy held onto the pole with two arms and then held his body out horizontal to the ground. And then pulled himself into the bar like he was doing pullups. Then there was a girl who walked up a cable to another cable, not a tight rope - this thing swayed as she walked. She'd do flips on the cable, and do flips from one cable to another. Then she stood on the cable that went down to the ground and slid down on a piece of cloth. I have that one on video.