It’s another early morning for me. I owe this early morning to the remaining Jet-lag and my excitement for the new day! Yesterday was my first full day in China, and man, it was a long one. It was filled with many new experiences and a new-found respect for the Chinese and how they do business.
I started off the day with a nice breakfast at the hotel. Of course I had rice with eggs in it for breakfast! I also had many other great foods, a lot of which were Americanized to make us feel at home. I guess the strangest thing at breakfast yesterday was Won-tons. No way would I be able to eat wontons in the morning ha. That’s a dinner item to me for sure. Anyway, I had some amazing all natural orange juice and all natural grape fruit juice. These were both freshly squeezed and the best I have had of both. I had about ten glasses haha. The glasses are really small though, so it wasn’t as extreme as you think.
We started out the day, after an amazing breakfast, with a visit to this nice Chinese museum. It was really interesting. Words can’t really describe the museum, and I’m not going to try, because I know how boring it is to read history books. Basically, it was a bunch of old historic items dating all the way back to 5000 BC. The place was three stories and had different themed rooms on each floor. My favorite was the room that had the evolution of their currency. Some of the dollar bills and coins that they used to use were the size of Apple Ipads and dinner plates. I’m not sure how they managed with the huge coins, but I guess it wasn’t working for them since they went through thousands of different looks and sizes for the currency. This outing gave me a great idea of how long of a history the Chinese have, and how much they like to make Buddha statues.
From there, we went to an Americanized lunch, buffet style. That’s right. A Chinese buffet. I didn’t think that they actually had these in China, which I still think this was like the only one, but it was pretty good. Many different foods than what we have in America. I think I ate a raw piece of shrimp that had some kind of fruity taste on the outside of it. It was in the fruit section. I had about six or seven food items for this meal that were a mystery. They were all pretty good. I had six flavors of ice cream too. The honey doo melon flavor was a great one.
After this, we had some free time to wander around. I WENT INTO MY FIRST CHINESE TEA SHOP! I enjoy tea a lot in America, but oh my, China knows how to make tea! The tea is so good, that when I am in there, it almost seems like it should be illegal. I am not kidding. It’s like I am in a coffee shop in Amsterdam or something. All of the hundreds of types of teas are in nice glass jars, close enough to take the tops off and get a nice smell of all of the beautiful aromas. It’s amazing. The first tea shop that we went in, we sat down with the owner of the store (she knew some English), and she served us all some nice green tea to get a feel for the taste. They do it differently than us, and a lot better. We steep our tea for 3-5 minutes, they steep there tea for a couple of seconds. A couple of grams of green tea will last about ten rounds-ten rounds for four people. I can’t describe how great the tea is, or how intimate it feels to have a tea party in a little back-alley store with a nice Chinese girl, but it left me with a new friend and a better understanding for how tea is treated in China. We went in a couple of other tea stores this day, all of which felt illegal, and all of which left me with a new friend. I find it very kind of them to let my friends and I sample their tea for 20 minutes. I will be back today to get a tea set.
Fresh Green Tea!This blog is getting long, so I will try and close it out soon. We went to this place that was filled with the iconic Chinese houses that we think about when thinking of Chinese architecture. It was a beautiful place of gardens and intricate buildings. It felt very sacred and cherished by the Chinese. Just outside of this place was full of shops, and a lot of bargaining!
If you don’t bargain in China, you are getting ripped off. It’s that simple. You must bargain if you come here. My first bought item, which was green tea, I bargained a little for, but I feel like I could have done better after walking in other tea stores and checking prices. The tea I bought was top quality green tea though. I know this because of the smell. Whenever you ask what is the best green tea in the store, they will get the jar and let you smell it. I bought 30 grams of the tea for 90 Yuan. This is about 15 dollars.
Listen to this Bargain. There are these headphones called Beats by Dr. Dre. Some have heard of them, some haven’t. Check the price on them online if you have not. We went into this electronic store (the stores are all about 10 feet by 10 feet. Maybe less) and looked at these headphones. They were selling for 580 Yuan for each pair. Michael and I got a pair for each of us for only 200 Yuan! 100 Yuan a pair. From 580 to 100, I’d say that’s a good bargain. We were a little skeptical to as their authenticity, but last night we tried them out, and we got an amazing deal. I couldn’t help but smile last night about how legit the headphones are and how legit the Chinese are at counterfeiting items, if these are even counterfeit.
I respect the Chinese a lot for how they do business. They do it with passion and with a big want to sell the items. When you bargain and they don’t go low enough, you walk out of the store. They drop the price real quickly after that. We also bought 8, quality, counterfeit DVDs. They are all extremely legit, and only about 8 Yuan each (a little over a dollar). Nearly everything is counterfeit that I have seen here, and our purchases thus far have been top quality.
I must stop here. The cruise last night was great. I really like China. I will be eating with Chopsticks for the majority of the time. I’m going to buy my own set in Beijing. Today we meet with two companies. I’ll let you know how they are tomorrow. Oh, I didn’t get to meet up with my Holland friend. Too busy and no way to get in contact. Hopefully she emailed me.
They Love Pictures with White People
No comments:
Post a Comment