Panjiayuan and the closing ceremonies

Panjiayuan is an outdoor flea market where local and tourist go to pick up most anything under the sun that the Chinese sell. No food though. Beads, jade, rocks, wood carvings, artwork, shadown puppets, paper cut pictures, tibetan quilt thingies, ink, paper, brushes, cups, bowls, saucers, broken pieces of pottery (who would buy this I'm not sure), musical instruments, table clothes, chopsticks, boxes, fans, robes deng deng (etc, etc). The list could go on forever. It's a fairly big place with vendors upon vendors selling their wares. If you are not careful you can get ripped off like crazy so it's best to bargin like there is no tomorrow. My rule of thumb is if you are not getting the price you want just walk away. More then likely the seller will come after you and want to negotiate further.

The worse thing about Panjiayuan for me is that it seems like everytime I go it is extremely hot or hot and humid which makes me sweat like a whore sitting in church...with no a/c...wearing a leather pant suit...which ripped when she sat down...and was now just asked to come up to the front of the church to be welcomed by the congregation. I'm talking sweating like crazy. It's ridiculous. It's like the weather gods know I'm coming and they decide to make it unbearable for me. Sunday was no exception. The only difference is that this Sunday was the last time Panjiayuan will see my hot sweatly self! No more I'm done.

I walked in Panjiayuan with my roommate Eduardo from Spain. He's in the second picture below. His saying of the day was "and we are not paying more than (insert extremely ridiculously low price here)__________ for this." Or "We are Beijingers, we are not tourists we were here long before the Olympics started. So give us the Chinese price!" All said in Chinese of course. And then we'd get lower. I'm good at bargaining, really good, but I take a back seat to Eduardo and his tenacity and command of Chinese to get us the better price. We both wanted to pick up some things since we are leaving Beijing soon. Me this coming Sunday and Edu the Wednesday after me. We are the only two left out of the major group of us there were hear. Hugo left for Chengdu China on Sunday morning. And all the others left weeks ago. This being our last week together and knowing the amount of hanging out that would be done this week the flea market was a good idea. We met up with Arenia, Alex both from Spain as well and Julie from the good ole US of A after shopping a while and just walked around, taking pictures (see below) and watching the U.S. beat Spain in basketball on the huge TV screens that were hung up for the Olympics. And YES I taunted my Spanish friends telling them that the U.S. was going to kick their asses in basketball. What! It's true.

Great dinner at my favorite place to eat Luogu Drum & Gong Fusion Restaurant. It's a hole in the wall almost literally but the food will kick your ass it's so good. I write this on Monday night after having had dinner there again tonight with my friends Jennifer and Anidiya from the New York (See Jenn and her mom's picture below. )

No tickets to the closing ceremony so went to welcome Jenn and Anidiya to Beijing in her mom's hotel room and we watch the ceremonies from there. I'm not sure how London or any other city for the matter will ever match the opening and closing ceremonies of 2008. All these superlatives come to mind to describe 2008 ceremonies, the least of which is spectacular. Truth be told if the London portion of the closing ceremonies is any indication of what the ceremonies of 2012 will be like I for one am prepared to be underwhelmed. Can you say blah? If the Chinese were to do that little intro that London did on Sunday night the Chinese would have made the doubledecker bus out of 2012 people and then had the people morph into a stage carrying the aged rocker, london pop star and the over the hill footballer. I mean come on London, umbrellas with lights on them!! Are you for real! Anyway it was good seeing my friend from the New York. They even smelled like the New York or maybe that was the long flight. Hanging out with them this week that they are here and Edu and the Spainards will be a great way to end a great nine 9 1/2 weeks (couldn't resist) in Beijing.

Here are some pictures from Panjiayuan. Anidiya sorry that I didn't get one of you on Sunday night.