Another Day in the City....

Pop Quiz! What kind of meat is this?

A) Beef

B) Chicken

C) Pork

D) Fish

If you guess A..... or any of the other given choices for that matter, then I'm sorry, trick question! The correct answer is "None of the above, you scoundrel." This is what I dined on last night:

The cold donkey meat wasn't that bad, to be honest; it kind of tasted like gamey ham. It was one of the dishes I dined on after an excursion late yesterday afternoon to the Silk Road Pearl Market. 

It's indoors, and kind of like a mall... but in many more ways, it's like nothing that you'll ever find back home in the states. There's no real stores, just stall upon stall upon stall of wares, most of them run by small Chinese women in matching red and yellow uniforms. I wish I could've taken a photograph of the inside, but unfortunately, that was more or less out of the question. The sales clerks here are without a doubt the shrewdest, toughest, trickiest, and the  intensely persistent folks I have ever met in my whole entire life. You literally can't stand in front of anyone's stall for a second before they start pushily inquiring "You want to buy a polo shirt?"  "You need new shoes?" "Hey, buy some silk pajamas for you girlfriend!" 

Actually, you can't walk by them without that happening either. Running down any aisle of stalls is running a gauntlet, because they do not give up easily; I even had one women grab me by the arm and attempt to drag me back to my stall, and a friend I was with literally became hemmed in by two sales reps who literally had no idea of the meaning of surrender. 

Each one of those fierce, tiny women is a force to reckoned with, which really doesn't help with the fact that there's no set prices. You literally have to haggle for every single thing that you purchase, and they will gladly argue with you for over an hour if they can stand to make a good profit out of the transaction. The Pearl Market is no place for any weak-hearted, unassertive soul, for they will take you to town if they can. I managed to get four T-shirts for I think about $4 each, but my friend had a stronger backbone than I did, because he managed to get five shirts for about $3 apiece. However, shortly later he got gypped while we bought him a new jacket, or at least he paid more for it than some others from TBC did. It was still a good price compared to how much he would have to pay back home, but it was still a defeat in a way, because we thought we had outwitted the saleswoman. 

Turns out, they are not the kind of people to be underestimated; the do know every trick in the book. We started out by conversing out loud about what the price was of jackets at "the other place downstairs", and once we grabbed her attention, we "decided to go to the place where we could get the jacket for 250 yuan." As we left, the saleswoman knocked down the price from 250 and cried out "200!" as we pretended to leave. At first, we thought victory was ours, but once we were ready to pay, the saleswoman pushily gave her price; "250!"

We assumed the upper hand was ours when I countered, "Nuh-uh, you said 200."

"No, no." she explained. "I mean 200 American dollar."   

So much for our grand scheme. We managed to settle on 250 yuan, and walked away battered, but with a valuable lesson; do not underestimate these people.  

For now, I think I'll do my shopping at a nearby market with flat prices, where no haggling is required. Bargaining here is an exhausting process, and I think as an obvious Westerner, we get little respect, so I'll return to Pearl Market only after my Chinese improves. 

That's about it for me, for now. Tomorrow, I embark upon the Silk Road excursion, from which I won't return until September 13. I'll make sure to tae lots of photos though, and I'll do my best to remain safe.

I give everyone my very best and hope you're all well back home!

Time to fill in all the details!

Okay, sorry for having to take two entries to cover the Great Wall excursion! Anyhow, on that day we all piled into two or three buses and traveled to a section of the wall called Mutianyu. It's definitely a tourist destination, but according to TBC officials, it's not as widely visited as other sections of the wall, which is why they prefer to visit it. 

It's still nevertheless definitely a location widely visited by tourists, which would explain all the small shops lining the small street which leads up to the pathways that visitors than can take up to the wall.

.....Or they can take a chair lift, if they're not up to the challenge. However, I preferred to live that particular day by a phrase I learned from my Mandarin professor at FU: You're not a hero until you've climbed the Great Wall.

The way up wasn't really that bad at all, to be frank. Compared to all the treks I undertook at Philmont Boy Scout Ranch, the stone pathways and staircases (as seen in some of the photos in the previous entry) were an absolute cakewalk, as was agreed by Tom, the student who not only ended up taking the exact same flight as me out of JFK to Chicago, and not only is also an Eagle Scout, but has also visited Philmont as well. 

The only major obstacle was the fact that it was extremely hot that day, which I think has something to do with the amount of pollution in the air, but to honest I prefer to avoid dwelling on that particular subject. 

After the short trek to the top, we then set about hiking along the length of the wall for as far as we possibly could, though not before stopping for a photo opportunity with "Hobbes", who my cousin Patrick sent me right before I left for Beijing so I wouldn't get lonely in China, as he explained. 

On this particular stretch of restored wall, there's only so far one can hike. No matter which way one goes, there's a point where the path is flat-out blocked by walled-off tower entrances (and a flimsy barrier erected on top of one of those towers too.)

Does anyone else find it ironic how that's all they did, considering the Great Wall itself is the largest man-made barrier ever made? 

Anyhow, the other end was more or less the same....

... Unless I want to exclude the pleasant surprise that I had there. While I was scaling some particularly troublesome stairs (they ranged in size from a few inches high to well over a foot) I noticed that a obviously foreign tourist, a girl my age with her family, kept giving me looks. Finally, she asked,

"What's your last name?"

(Pause) "....Staysniak."

"....Are you from Ridgefield?"

As it turns out, it is a small world after all.

Niven Mazza (there's more than a sizable chance I'm butchering her name atrociously here), who had my own mother as her seventh-grade history teacher, was visiting with her family due to the fact that her father works for NBC, and apparently specializes in coverage of the Olympic games (amongst the places they've visited were Atlanta and Sydney, as explained to me by her mother.) It really was quite the wonderful occasion ... but I really wish I wasn't such a sweaty, stinky mess when I was talking to them.

Shortly afterwards, I finally gave in to my mounting thirst and sough out a bottle of water, which only took several seconds as it felt like that there was a vendor at practically every tower yelling out "Water! Cold beer!" every time I passed them by. I then rejoined everyone else down below, and we then got back aboard the buses for the trip home. 

Here's an interesting note; as opposed to the cities back home, Beijing doesn't exactly taper off into suburbs of any sort. More or less, Beijing just ceases, and the surrounding countryside more or less gives away to a myriad of small towns and farmland. 

Anyhow, a few hours after returning to UIBE, we all gathered together for a group dinner at the on-campus restaurant.

Later on, Tom, Sarah Homewood (the one girl from Fairfield University at TBC this semester) set out to explore some stores in the neighborhood. For those of you who don't know Sarah, here's a quick photo of us taken shortly after our arrival at Beijing airport on Aug. 26. 

By some miracle, Tom and I knew enough Mandarin to help Sarah purchase a cheap cell phone at a nearby electronics store, which wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done (I personally think I just gestured more than anything.) We then briefly checked out the five-story Japanese department store, and a place called Wu Mart, a "hyperstore" according to its massive neon sign. "Hyperstore" would actually be the best way to describe it, for there was definitely way too much activity going on in there for us to handle for very long. 

That more or less does it, for like the past several nights, I fell asleep fairly soon after returning to building #6, wiped out by a big day.

 I hope everyone back home is doing well!

....And if you're reading this, Mom....Niven says hi.

Photographs galore!

I'm a tad squeezed for time this morning, so I can only post those photos before I gotta scoot off to breakfast and then more orientation. I'll describe how the day at the Great Wall went later, and I'll post some more photos too!