Shopping

Thursday was quite the adventure.  First we have undertaken operation "Pictures From Inside the Bird's Nest" (PFITBN),  and our first attempt failed.  Lincoln, Joseph, and I began the long journey from outside the IBC around the MPC to the OCG, which is were the stadiums are.  Now what you have to understand about this area, is this was all built for this games.  So it is incredibly fortified with checkpoints and with sheer distance.  The walking distance from one side of the main Olympic Green is like size of Midtown Atlanta.  I know that only helps some of you reading this, but the bottom line is no one will really want to walk this entire distance on a regular basis.  We attempted to walk about 1/15 of it and it took us 25 minutes.  We have passes that read all venues, but there was a name attached.  But most of the gatekeepers can't read English, so we're hoping they just see the pass, and let us by.  Just in case my pass was from the Cuban team member Ernesto, so I had some Spanish prepared.  I thought I could pull it off.  Lincoln wearing a Serbian guys pass, was going to have to be more creative with his heavy Australian accent.  

Well it didn't work, I mean we didn't get even close.  They wanted to see a passport to match ID with tag.  So a little peeved we'd walked all that way, we got back to the office, and found out we'd had our own All Venue passes upstairs in an office waiting for us the whole time!  So stand by for the next update, because we have a limited time window for these passes to be valid and used.  

Activity number two for the day was based on a rumor of great items for great prices.  The Silk Market is known for its shopping and bargain bartering.  Its stocked full of namebrand items that tend to have interesting twists that allow them to be bought a lot cheaper.  Some are following with me.  Well we decided to go and take a look after work.  Its a famous place, we'd see what they have and then grab some dinner.  The way there showed us a number of additional event venues which were looking good, some new sights like giant public video screens for Closed Circuit advertising, and some very interesting buildings.  We arrived at our destination and from the moment we walked in the doors it was game on!  Now to set the scene its like an indoor flea market with booths, and items are by floor.  So floor one is clothes, two is jewelry, three electronics, etc.  Each booth is manned by teenagers, mostly girls who speak pretty good English.  The bottom line is their job is to flirt, grab, joke, perform, by whatever means necessary to get you to buy something.  They are selling similar products so its may the best sales girl win.  They are definitely gearing their sales pitch to business man looking to buy souvenirs for their families back home.  The reason I picked up on this was because our group of four taking in the experience, was being pitched on things like kids t-shirts and women's blouses.  So if they weren't pitching this for my girlfriend and kids back home, then I'm pretty offended.  

After about twenty minutes of "Hello, you buy here, you look, something nice, try it out, get it for cheap, namebrand, sir have to come here, (grab arm) Sir, here, hello, hello, hello, excuse me, I want to see you", it got a little old and we escaped to the electronics section, where I discovered versions of the iPhone that Steve Jobs hasn't even seen yet.  They also had Nintendo Wiis and Sony PSPs for prices I've never seen in the US.  Conclusion:  The rest of the worlds biggest export to China is great products and ideas that they can copy and sell.  Its pretty funny to have a sales girl try to sell you an iPhone, you get out the real iPhone, and she becomes enthralled in the actual cool scrolling interface you can do.  As she stood there flicking the screen with her finger, I couldn't help but laugh.  She then asked me if I could go to the U.S. with her money and buy her a real iPhone!  I politely declined, but its a funny request.

We had a great buffet dinner on the top floor of the place, which included some good, safe fruit among lots of different entrees.  It was also nice and quiet.  Back outside we soaked up some of the Beijing night scenes.  This area of town is more upscale and is frequented by major tourist hotels, so it has a glitzy, electronic flavor at night.  I took some great pictures.  

We have Saturday off, so I'm not sure what adventure we'll plan to partake in, but I'm sure it will deliver some good stories.  I will have a post before that, we're going to make this interactive.  So if you have an idea to pitch for where we should visit in Beijing on Saturday you can post a comment.  I read all your comments by the way, though I don't respond.  I've enjoyed your feedback.