Shoptastic

I awoke several times in the night. Once I needed to go to the 

bathroom but I decided I would just go in the morning. It was a 

hassle to put on shoes and walk down the steep steps and down the 

hallways to get there. At 5:30am, I heard someone get up, move stuff 

around, and then go out the door. I was wondering why they would 

because it sounded like they were going to the shower not just the 

bathroom. It turns out, Ashley thought it was a lot later when she 

looked at the time. She did get up and shower. 
 
We agreed the night before that we would be out the door by 9:30am at 

least. We were. We were out by nine. The walk to the 'Temple of 

Heaven' was about one or two miles. It was mostly like a huge park 

with random steps and Chinese buildings. That took about an hour and 

a half...but we had agreed to meet at the entrance in two hours. So 

waiting in the wind was a bit obnoxious but I sat on the corner of a 

sign that blocked a good portion of the wind. While here at the 

temple, there were again, many white people but we rarely ran into 

or found Americans. (as far as we knew) Sometimes we could tell by 

their accents or when they spoke another language other than English. 

It was fun to try and guess. 
 
For lunch, we found a random little street and random little 

restaurant that had pictures to point at. The noodles were good. They 

were salty tasting. Then right across the way was the pearl market. 

Kim was so excited that I almost had to hold her back. 
 
It was insane! Chinese people trying to sell anything and everything 

they had, at outrageous prices (because they know we do not really 

understand or know good prices). Not to mention that most of the 

things were knock offs or fakes. Sifting through everything and 

bargaining with these people was so crazy! I hated when they would 

grab our arms and make us stay there or really think we were stupid. 

Some of the sellers would pretty much chase after you. There was 

plenty of walking away, many coming backs, and some coming back after 

a while when we feel like they were not ripping us off and it was a 

good deal. I got some nice things but probably spent too much. 

Especially for being in China. It is a learning process with these 

things. 
 
At one point, Ashley was helping someone buy and bargain for a coat 

and the people were asking way too much. She told them she paid 50 

yuan for a jacket like that and by that point, the seller was really 

getting frustrated and angry because she wanted her price. So she 

told Ashley, "You look like 50 yuan!" we get a good kick out of that 

line. She was also called, "too tough". One of the sellers said, "a 

little tough is good but you are too tough." We had to be tough 

though and that was the lesson we all kept learning...over and over 

again. At the end of the day, I think we were all quite proud and 

happy with our purchases overall. I still think my 10 yuan bag is my 

favorite purchase so far. 
 
To go back to our hostel, we took the long way. No, not on purpose. 

Our sense of direction is a little off. As well as our map reading 

skills. (They sometimes just have bad maps though-not in this case.) 

we went backwards and down a questionable street. We found a 7 Eleven 

on our way back for dinner. The peaches and pistachios I bought were 

delicious! The pistachios were spicy and good. The walk back, was 

painful. I had all of my purchases and other equipment in my new bag. 

I could only have it on one shoulder at a time and it would dig in. 

My feet got swollen and hurt. It seemed like an eternity. When we got 

back, we showed off our buys and enjoyed just crashing in our room. I 

got my bag all ready for my next Big adventure-sleeping on the Great 

Wall of China. Yeah. Excitement was in the air.