Day 5 in Beijing - June 25, 2010

Yes - we get to sleep in! Today was the first day we didn't have to be up early and ready for a tour. Instead, we had a leisurely breakfast and decided to spend a couple of hours at the infamous silk market. This is the most amazing building - literally 6 floors of booths selling knock offs of clothing, watches, silk table cloths and really pretty much any clothing you can imagine. The trick is to negotiate and negotiate strongly. In other words, Billy's rule is "the 10% rule". That is whatever the vendor says the price is, you offer 10% of that number. An example today was Red, Peter and I trying to buy some ties. I ended up with 2 ties and Peter picked one so we had 3 ties. The first offer from the 20 year old female salesperson was 1200 yuan or about $180. We ended up paying 200 yuan or about $28 ($ 9+ per tie!). Meg picked up the black silk dress she had made and Maddie found a blue chiapou dress for 100 yuan or $14. Red was the clear winner with buying 3 ties, 3 shirts, t-shirts and several items for their children.
This afternoon we were picked up by the trusty bus and taken to a Tibetan Llama temple in the heart of Beijing. This temple is set up for the Tibetan people who follow the Daoist religion. There are amazing Buddhas and beautiful art work dating from the 17th century with the incense constantly burning for the worshipping. It was an interesting visit.
Plans changed tonight for dinner - no one wanted to drive 2 hours in the rush hour so our new tour guide Amelia recommended the Bahai Garden restaurant near the Forbidden City. We were joined by Brad Smith who was visiting in Beijing after 7 months of travel and it was great to see him and hear his travel stories throughout southeast Asia. The setting was beautiful with a lake and we were there as the sun was setting. We were greeted at the door by the Emperor's concubines who represented the imperial days. The food was served in small portions as in the emperor's meals and it was one of the best dinners of the trip. We walked back thru the Hutong to get to the bus and talked with all of the Smiths about China, the trip, the wedding and just fun conversation.