Friday October 1st: Silk Market

After sleeping in, a group of us in the dorms decided to go to The Bridge Cafe in Wudaokou. It has great American hangover food. Found out one of our hall mates had to stop his taxi on the way home last night and puke over the highway, classy. Had delicious hot chocolate, toast with butter and jam, potatoes, three egg omelette with mushroom, onion and cheese, and bacon, mmmmmmmm. Because our group was so big we were sequestered into a little room by ourselves. It was quite sad, they wouldn't even let us keep the main door open so it felt like we were in the cafe!

Also fun fact: In China they make you pay for your meal while you are still eating. So halfway through my lovely omelette we had to take a 10 minute break to figure out paying logistics- they will also not accept 100 yuan bills- which is conveniently the only note that the ATM's give out. So smart China.

Web picture of The Bridge Cafe:

After returning to the dorm for a brief bit, Heather, Katie and I took the subway to the Silk Market. The subway was insane. It's a National Holiday here so everyone is traveling. Everyone. So we were packed like sardines into the train cars. Literally there's no thing as no more room in China, they just push until they can fit. I didn't think I would ever be so close to a Chinese man's hair. I dared Heather to lick it, but she smartly didn't.

Rachel's parents were so delightful and kind. It's so nice just having parents around. It automatically makes anyone feel safer. And of course it makes you think of your family back home. Suddenly they don't seem so far and disconnected, yet you really realize that they are so far away. So we did a little bit of shopping. I bought some long sleeved shirts because I stupidly only packed one long sleeved shirt, and I'm about to go to Inner Mongolia- which is cold!! The others all bought North Face jackets- Katie got the black one I have for about $25! Crazy.

Bargaining is exhausting. The whole process can take up to an hour. You say your price, they refuse, you walk away, they go a little lower, you say it's still to expensive, they go a little lower, you walk away again etc. And a lot of the time they won't even tell you the price of something until you try it on and officially 'like' it. It is crazy. Then they all say the same thing "for you special price," " you smart girl, I like you, no joke price," "for other people I say this price, but for you I just say this." My favourite one is "you speak Chinese so good!" This is the result of me saying a number in Chinese- obviously that makes me fluent. Katie and I each started to say we're from different countries. If you say America you almost always get labeled as "rich." So I've started to say Hong Kong, and Katie has started to say Spain. Of course these women are pros. They have picked up just enough of each language to speak to their customers. So Katie will be in a market in Beijing speaking Spanish. It's quite strange.

After the exhausting adventure we took the subway over to Rachel's parents' hotel. They are staying at the Marriott near the Old City Wall. It is gorgeous. We got to go to the executive lounge where we ate tons of food and drank copious amounts of white wine. They had dessert a little later with chocolate mousse, mmm. The food even had cheese! Cheese! We stayed there as long as we could before taking a taxi back to school.