More on Beijing

I had heard bad reviews about Beijing subway while I was in Taipei but I found it to be very well planned and maintained. I managed to get to pretty much everywhere I wanted to go using the subway. Each one way trip cost only 2 Yuan no matter the destination. There were frequent trains, even though it could get very crowded during commute hours, it’s not that bad. It’s clean and very easy to use and has English signs. Besides, the traffic above ground can be quite horrendous so its way quicker with the subway. I highly recommend them. An interesting thing I found, they have digital displays in the tunnels between stations even though you cannot read them when the train’s going very fast!
I found Beijing to be fairly clean even in the hutongs. Their monuments and tourist sights are also kept quite clean. One major vice among many Chinese I found was spitting in public areas which typically included a very noisy clearing of the throat! Older and middle aged people are typical culprits. I saw a very nicely dressed woman in a skirt and knee high boots doing it! Of course, coming from India, this is not an unfamiliar sight for me.
Switching gears, Beijing is a shopper’s heaven! Especially if you want Chinese silks, pearls, jade and other traditional items, there are quite a few venues here. They also have fake namebrand bags, watches, shoes and leather boots by the piles here. The Yashow market, the silk street market, Qianmen Dashilar market etc.. I ended up visiting the Silk Street market a total of 6 times! I wanted to get some Chinese clothes made which required me to visit, to choose and measure, to get fitted, to pick up the dress and so on. By the way, I have to put in good word for the Chinese tailors. They are the best in the world! Compared to the Indian dress makers that give you soooo much hassle and then end up screwing up, these guys were great! I’m absolutely impressed by the attention to detail and perfection of stitching!
Did I already mention that you can find pearls and jades by sackfuls here? And it is also quite cheap. They may be cultured pearls but they are real pearls. There are many shades, white, black, purplish black, greenish black, different shades of pink and so on. These markets where you buy all these goods are quite a scene. Almost all the sales people are women and you have to bargain with them. My Chinese friend’s recommendation was to start at 20% of the asking price.
The bargaining, if you’re not used to it, can be quite tough. I was quite embarrassed about it in the beginning but then you get the hang of it. Especially when you realize you can actually get away with paying about 25% of the asking price, you’d be crazy not to bargain. I actually started enjoying the drama these girls put up and the dialogs with them. “I like u, I give u spaashal price!”, “whey u from?”, “u so beautiful, theyfo, I give u spaashal price”, “Lady! U crazy!”, “come in here, I don wan others to see what low price I give you”, “you tell me yo last price la”.. etc. Almost every shop carries the same stuff and there are tons of them. But, even though I typically don’t like the touristy shopping experience, this turned out to be quite a fun one.