Bartering and Light Fun

On Friday, I went to Beijing for a little shopping with 6 other ladies from my organization. We started out at the Pearl Market - a market full of jewelry, shoes, purses, and clothes. At this market you barter for EVERYTHING, meaning you negotiate the prices. Usually, they can see a foreigner coming from a mile away and they will do anything they can to rip you off, for example, start the price at 385 RMB when it's actually worth less than 50 RMB. I wasn't planning on buying anything but then I got really into the bartering and bought a few things just because I was getting them for a ridiculously low price! I was named the "Barter Queen" for the day, and everyone decided that if they wanted to buy anything, they had to take me with them! It was really fun! I tend to use the "I'm walking away..." method, as well as just being really persistent and continuing to demand lower prices. It helped, too, when we spoke Chinese to them because then they knew that we had a clue about what was going on. Anyways, I plan on going back...either to shop for myself or to help someone else...so fun! We also hit IKEA while we were there...yep, I said IKEA - Swedish meatballs and all. :)

Last night I went with Cindy, her daughter Lizzy, and Natalie to Tianjin WaterPark where there is currently a Lantern Display. After this week the display moves to another city and apparently it is going to travel around the country during this next year before the Olympics. Tianjin was its first stop. It was really cool --- this huge park full of different displays and inflatables. Some of them played music and some were kind of like puppet stages with different Chinese activities or rituals being shown. Here are just a few of the pictures I took:

As you can see in the last one, they are gearing up for the 2008 Olympics!

I will be posting another blog within the next few days to share with you some of my experiences as I have begun volunteering at the local orphanage. Until then...
Shannon :)