I got up the next morning early. I had retired early despite the wedding bhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifecause the weather got to me and my nose, ears blocked and with a hurting throat....so I left a little earlier than I thought I would. So the next morning I took Hao's other reco and went to the temple of heaven, which was more interesting than Forbidden City.
What I loved about it - more than the structures, which all seemed to intermingle in my mind by now -- was the people. There were so many local people doing so many different things. It was Sunday morning and people were out in the sun -- singing, dancing (salsa and traditional), exercising, playing jianzi, a sport where you play shuttle-cock with your foot - nice fun! People seemed very extroverted, open and forthcoming. People volunteered to sing and it was all so interesting. I lost track of time before rushing to make it back to the Quandrangle hotel for lunch at noon.
At lunch, I tried frog legs, scallops and squid all for the first time - all for fun. Frog legs I thought tasted like Checkers' fries.
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Silk market was chaos. You can hone your negotiation and bargaining skills well by spending time there. You can find the most unbelievable deals usually at the 1/10th the price they originally quote. It's erstwhile Fashion Street in Mumbai -- only that many times bigger. The vendors spoke better English than most vendors in the rest of Beijing.
That night we ate dinner at the place called "The Place" - a mall with a huge LCD roof that displayed all kinds of things -- from flowers, to kids, to outerspace stuff...it's a great place to get buzzed and lose track of time and your mind.
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