Free Day - Pearls, Scorpions, and a Bus Ride

Our last day in Beijing before leaving for Hohhot. We started out at the Pearl market - 4 floors of shopping! My first stop was the ATM, as I have already spent most of the money I came with. I got enough to last me for at least a couple of weeks, since I am almost through buying all I intended to. The top floor of the Pearl Market is jewelry, but I didn't make it up there until it was almost time to leave; I got distracted on the 2nd floor, by the silk. The bus was leaving at 11:30 for the bookstore downtown, so I had to hurry upstairs to pick up the pearls I ordered a couple days ago from Sandy Pearls. The owner of Sandy Pearls came to the hotel a couple nights ago with a large selection of her wares, and there was a frenzy of ordering from the women on the trip. Both beds and all available desktop space was covered with pearls - necklaces, rings, earrings, bracelets, jade of various sorts - way more than I could imagine. I ordered a couple things as gifts. Anyway, I got my stuff and ran for the bus.
Several of us made the trip to the bookstore - 6 floors of every imaginable book in Chinese. They had a small selection of English language books. Jackie found me a Chinese language National Geographic magazine, and I got a couple more gifts for the teachers in my hall. The bookstore is downtown, and this is how I pictured Beijing - lots of people. Where we have been staying there are not so many people walking around, so we kept wondering - where are all the billion Chinese we keep hearing about. There is a pedestrian-type mall down the block, so that's where we headed. Down a side street was this incredible market. Lots of local-looking people, plus some tourists. I ate a fried scorpion.
The scorpions were live, and they fried them up, seasoned them, and then - yummy? Not much taste to the bugs, just crispy, with a sort of seasoned salt on them. A couple of the guys ate snake, then we found a small restaurant and had lunch - rice with stir-fried chicken and veggies.




We wandered around the market awhile, then took cabs to the Lao-She Tea House. The tea was good - I had Jasmine - and there were performances by musicians, juggling, and a shadow play. Here the stork is trying to get the turtle, and finally succeeds. It was pretty good. By then it was almost 5, so Patricia and I decided to head back to the hotel. We are both older, and the 20 somethings wanted to stay out til after dark. We need our sleep, so we thought we'd catch a cab back home. No luck. The one cab who stopped said no, too far - or maybe he didn't know where it was. Our minder had given us business cards with the name of the university, address, and a sort of map, all in Chinese, in case we got lost. About that time the younger folks came out of the tea house, so we hooked back up with them. They were trying to get a rickshaw ride somewhere. It was then that the old Chinese man in the silk jacket came up. Pat showed him the card, and Bethany (the Chinese language teacher in our group) translated for us. He ended up writing some instructions on the card on Chinese, including bus #456. We followed his instructions to go down the block and around the corner into uncharted territory.
Fortunately, each bus stop in Beijing has 2 workers whose job is to keep order. We asked at the first stop by showing them the card, and they indicated "5" and pointed further down the street. After passing a couple hutongs, 2 more bus stops, a lady with a box of baby chicks, and lots of shops, we asked again and were directed to a line with 5 written on it - for bus #5. Shortly thereafter the bus arrived, and we got on with a hundred other people. The helper talked through the window with the conductor (not the driver) and she indicated she would let us know when to get off. We passed the Grand Beijing Hotel, lots of office buildings, and at each stop more people got on, and few got off. We stood holding on to the overhead handrails until a seat finally cleared out. Not much later we were directed to get off.
At this stop some locals waiting for the bus were very helpful. Pat showed them the card, they pointed out the line for #456, then discussed whether or not that was really the right bus. After a few minutes it came, and along with lots more people we got on. Pat showed the card to the conductor and she nodded, so we grabbed the rails and hung on. By the time we got to the freeway the bus was so packed no one could move. We got on the freeway and drove for a long time, and Pat and I began to recognize some buildings. By the time the bus exited we knew we were headed in the right direction - we were in the "suburbs" where all the apartment buildings are located. Our stop ended up being 1/2 block from the NAEA campus. In all, it was exactly the experience I wanted - an hour and a half of real life in Beijing. Each bus cost 1 yuan, about 6.7 cents. We found out after we got home that another couple had taken a taxi back and it cost them 200 RMB, about $30.
So I am packing for Hohhot, and tomorrow morning we take off. It's been great here, I look forward to our return.