我非常喜欢北京

So I have been living in Beijing for about two months and I think it’s about time I updated you all on where I have been.

I have actually not been to that many places because I have been so busy with classes and generally being lazy, but I have been to a few pretty cool sites.

I have gone to the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Silk Market, and Zhongguancun.  Each of those places were awesome in their own way; however, I’m going to tell you right now that the Silk Market is quite possibly the worst place on the entire planet.

The Forbidden City (故宫) is probably the coolest place that I have been since being in China.  There is so much history there along with a lot of traditional Chinese architecture.  It seemed as if every building that I walked into had some kind of Throne that people were all gathered around.  The Forbidden City also had what was probably the highlight of my trip so far: The Mountain of Accumulated Elegance.  It is not really a mountain as it is a large natural stone edifice, but it is still really cool.  The Chinese do a lot of really weird things (that I’ll talk about in my next post), but one thing that the Chinese do VERY well is naming things.  When you look at a sign and realize you are about to see a Mountain of Accumulated Elegance, you know that whatever that mountain is, it’s going to be amazing.

The Temple of Heaven was another traditional Chinese historic place that was split into three sections in addition to having a very large park.  The literal translation of The Temple of Heaven from Chinese to English is ‘The Sky Temple’ and that is because Chinese people do not believe in Heaven.  (Chinese fun fact, instead of saying “Oh my God!” Chinese people say “Oh My Sky!”)  The highlight of the temple of heaven was standing on a rock.  That may sound really lame.  History Time: Back in the olden-days, only the Emperor was allowed to stand on this certain rock and everyone had to listen to him when he was on that rock.  I stood on that rock.  I’m not clear on the whole process, but I’m fairly confident that I am now a Chinese Emperor.  I’ll be sure to let you all know how that turns out.

The Silk Market is where you go if you want to by fake clothes, shoes, watches, games, and just about anything fake that you would ever want other than computers and cell phones.  I needed to go buy a pair of dress shoes because I didn’t bring any and there were probably about 30-40 stores where I could have bought the shoes.  I went up to the first store I walked to, picked out a pair of shoes, tried them on, they fit, and so I began to negotiate.  Negotiating should be a fairly simple process of exchanging desired prices until a mutual agreement can be reached.  Not in China.  The first price I was given was 1,850 Yuan (over 340 US Dollars).  I responded by saying 100 Yuan.  That’s when things got interesting.  The more I talked with the store owners and talked about price, the more physical they got with me and they were refusing to allow me to leave the store.  I got pretty mad (I like my personal space) and so I was finally able to shove the owners out of the way and leave the store.  As I was walking away they agreed to give me the shoes for 255 Yuan.  I paid, and ran away.  I’m never going back there.   Ever.

Zhongguancun.  You probably have no idea what this is.  It is actually a street; however, on this street is where you buy everything that needs electricity.  Everything sold there is fake.  If I were to use one word to describe Zhongguancun in one word, that word would be Heaven.  This place is amazing.  It has tons of cell phones, computers, Playstations, Xboxes, and just about everything that I could ever want to buy.  If anyone wants me to get them a fake iPhone while I’m here, let me know.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be sure to post again soon!

 

我爱美国！