Sunday, our second day in Beijing started at the weekend Dirt Market, aka Panjiayuan Market. As a world class shopper, and even though accompanied by my well-trained sidekick Alex and our negotiating-wizard guide, I have to say I was a bit flummoxed by the Dirt Market. There was so much stuff and so many people it took a while to figure it out.
Simultaneously viewing thousands of similar objects made it hard to decide which were best, or even worth a second look. And the going in prices seemed to be without any rhyme or reason. So, it took us a while for us to get comfortable as shoppers, but eventually we found some things to buy and also learned to walk away from silly starting prices. One other lesson quickly learned is that if you see something you like, buy it because you may never see it again or you may see 10,000 more or the same thing in the next 5 minutes—there is no telling. There were abundant fake antiques, cheap jewelry, posters, paintings, and general junk.
We found some cool old eye glasses, but they turned out to be real antiques and very expensive. We resisted complete sets of armor, illegal carved elephant tusks, and all manner of sculpture, but succumbed to things like Christmas ornaments for the perennially confused Kirsh-Clifford tree, Chinese soup spoons for our favorite chef, and a bewildering array of necklaces and bracelets.
After 3 hours of nonstop marketplace haggling and wandering, we needed to just sit down. So what better place than the Sichuan Chinese restaurant obscurely located on the second floor of a standard-looking office building selected by our driver? The food was lava-hot, everything spiked with rough-chopped chili peppers and coated in chili oil. Check it out!
The food was delicious, especially the whole fish and the spinach with pine nuts that came rolled up and tall. I am sure somewhere I have the name of the place. I am glad I didn’t notice that some of the fish in the tanks were floating belly up until we were on the way out. Yuck.
Then it was off to the Summer Palace. Getting there was a traffic nightmare, worse than anything I have experienced on the Beltway or even the LA freeways. We ended up walking the last bit, and saw people transporting everything imaginable on their bicycles—even a mattress.
The Summer Palace had architecture similar to that of the Forbidden City, plus the added feature of a magnificent park-like lakeside setting. The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed spending a few hours there. We walked through the longest hallway in the world—an intricately carved and painted outdoor covered pathway. Trees were blooming, it was just beautiful. But the major hordes of people made it difficult to walk at times, and we basically abandoned all attempts to look inside most buildings because we were unwilling to fight for a spot to peer over the barrier or through the open window.
The constant giant crowds and lack of any personal space get old. The marble boat looked like a good place for a party. By the time we got out of there we were more than ready for a break.
We went to the Chinese acrobat show directly from the Summer Palace. The show was good and not the typical plates on sticks. We got home too late to eat dinner and passed out.
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