My three day weekend

Well my first Chinese holiday is almost over... I did not find any cool dragon boats out yesterday. But Theresa and I did find a street festival on the other side of the city. It was cool to see another part of Beijing. It also made me grateful to be living in Zhong Guan Cun. That's for sure. We went to Gao Bei Dian yesterday. There was a lot of construction, broken up sidewalks, tent cities, a lack of traffic lights/pedestrian crosswalks... We made it out to the district from the subway and had no clue where to go for the street festival.

We walked to the "Tourist Center" only to find no one was there.

I guess they had closed for the holiday... or gone to the hidden street festival. I guess they made it so "China" looking so all the tourists would go by to see what it was.

So we continued walking and went straight to this awesome statue!

Where there were loads of Chinese kids throwing rocks at each other and yelling, "Fire in the hole!"

We went about our way after photographing the awesome statue and laughing about the kids... To our amazement we found a map that was in English on the side of the road. We stopped to look at it but really just ended up more confused. A man came up and asked, "Can I help you?" So I told him we wanted to go to Furniture Street and he pointed us in the right direction with a little bit of broken English. Eventually we made it there

And we watched some cool performances by the locals. I listened in on a conversation between a few English speakers and heard them say only the "older men" do these kinds of shows.

We stopped to watch some kids "fishing" these huge red, silk fish using sticks with string and a hook on the end. Considering there was a river with real fish in it only a few blocks away, this did seem a little odd. But it looked like a good time.

Like I said, this part of the city made me thankful for my "home" district of Haidian.

Along with watching the games and festivities we got to see some of the booths they had set up. We both bought bracelets (our first purchases in Beijing) and we looked at some of the other things they were selling. Gao Bei Dian is known as the furniture district so we saw a lot of, er, furniture for sale.

The parks were beautiful and I loved that it was all right on the water. All-in-all we had a great Dragon Boat Festival day! After leaving Gao Bei Dian we headed to Tuanjiehu and did some bargaining at the market and we ate mouth-watering, delicious pizza at The Tree. This will definitely be a frequent visit that we will be making.

Here is my yummy, Hawaiian pizza and my new favorite pizza joint in town:

I bought a cute D&G purse for 90 kuai. Which I think was a good price considering she tried to sell it to me for 850.

Bargaining was maybe the most fun I've ever had. It is awesome to tell someone you will not pay what they are asking. Basically you look at something and the sales people jump all over you. "Hey lady! You like? Must try. Pretty lady wants this bag? Here. I offer low price. You are a student? Oh, you live Beijing? I give friend price for you then." A lot of conversation happens and you just walk away since they won't come to the price you want. Then they start yelling, "Ok lady! Ok!" You go back and get what you wanted at the price you asked. It's amazing.

Now that I've got the hang of it I will definitely be spending a lot of time at the market. I am pretty sure my purse obsession will really go into full swing here. Thankfully you can get these things for pretty stinkin' cheap here. I also saw tons of shoes and clothes that are just calling my name.

I am liking Beijing-living. No regrets =)


Mandarin lesson:
Gòuwù zhòng xīn 购物中心 (shopping mall) Bǐsà 比萨 (pizza) Qiánbāo 钱包 (purse)