Day 10…again…

The Japanese band started playing in the courtyard of the hotel as we were checking out. They were the youngest group (junior high) in the Olympic Orchestra, but probably had many of the best musicians. They sounded amazing! I have a video of them that will be posted soon. Unfortunately, the audio quality isn’t the best.

We crammed our suitcases onto the buses and were off into Beijing for our last day. We spent the afternoon at an “indoor street market” referred to as Silk/Pearl Street. From the outside, the building didn’t look big enough to hold everything that we saw. There were four or five stories, plus a basement. Each floor had a general theme (i.e. clothing, arts/crafts, jewelry, electronics, purses, etc.), and was filled to bursting with individual merchant stalls.

I spent most of my time around arts/crafts or jewelry looking for souvenirs. I did have the experience of trying to buy a “name-brand” purse as one of my friends was trying to get one for his mom. That was… interesting? The purse dealers seem to be several times more persistent than everyone else, including the rip-off designer clothing people. Despite the difficulties that come with buying fake purses, this was a very fun day! I find haggling entertaining and it’s neat to just look at stuff. You can’t look too closely though — They’ll try and sell it to you immediately!

Eventually it was time to go to the station where we boarded an overnight-sleeper train. It was similar to the airport, except smaller. The train ride was fun! It was about 12 hours long. There were four people per cabin. They served boxed dinners on the train. They were alright, better than airplane food. We were also given a pitcher of hot water…without anything else. No cups, no tea, no anything…I’m not sure what was it’s purpose. We used it the next morning (it was still hot) to wash our faces. The corridors were narrow, so we hung out in each other’s cabins until we fell asleep.