Our adventure today, Thursday, May 15, 2008 took us to the Summer Place, Shopping, the Panda Zoo and the Temple of Heaven.
Ces and I contracted a taxi driver to be our guide for the whole day for only Y400 ($48). Should you happen to come by Beijing, I highly recommend you hire the services of this person and save a tremendous sum of money. His name is Li with mobile telephone number 1-362-106-9212. He's inexpensive and helps you with bargaining at the stores! He defers to your wishes and was even shy, almost too embarassed to eat lunch with us.
A visit to the Summer Palace should be a whole day. You can take a leisurely walk, stop once in a while to see the different palaces and royal quarters, have a picnic and just really make a day of it. There is so much to see and enjoy, especially if you get an audio set. The audio set turns on automatically at certain points. It must be triggered by magnetic signals as you cross a certain area. So, there is no need to hurry up to the next attraction.
At the Summer Palace, you can enjoy the lake by just taking its marvelous view or by riding a boat or paddling a boat. There are archways to behold and a plethora of structures full of history. The Internet can easily provide details of these attractions, if you so wish.
You could easily spend a half day at the Temple of Heaven. After all, it has more than 300 hectares to explore. If you are into the architecture and the history that goes with it, then two hours would do. However, if you enjoy nature, the gardens would be refreshing! I just love those flowers of many kinds that abound in the gardens!
Li took us to two shopping areas. The first one was a Divisoria type: extremely ridiculous low prices and elbow to elbow room only. The quality of products sold, however, were of lower quality. The clothes sizes were very small. Apparently, the stores catered to the locals who are almost all thin! There weren't any large sizes of any kind! We left that area at a blink of an eye.
The next place Li took us to was the Pearl Market, a place similar to the Silk Market we went to for the last two days. The Pearl Market was far better than the Silk Market. It was clean. The stalls were spaced with breathing room. The prices were lower than those at the Silk. However, as it is in other business, you really have to haggle over prices. Negotiate to an amount that you want to comfortably pay.
We got the designer jeans and other clothes products of Victoria Beckham, True Religion and Ed Hardy.
China, it appears, is a shopper's paradise. In the two hours we were in this market, I nust have seen and heard people of at least ten different languages, in addition to the locals, foreigners come for the bargain.
Ces wants to go back to the stores tomorrow! Yikes!
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