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We didn’t really rush to get out of the hotel that early on Sunday (about 10am) our first task was to head off to the Foreign Language Bookshop, to buy a dictionary, the Lonely Planet China Phrasebook is shit!! Which is why that you should always look at the book that you are buying, instead of rushing around like we did, it has 14 languages in it & the phrases/ dictionaries for all of the languages it has are useless. We tried to converse with people using it when we arrived & gave up in the end - biggest waste of money. You may as well buy separate phrasebooks for each language you need (we need Mandarin, Cantonese & Tibetan). I was fairly humoured that the 14 languages it has also included Mongolian …. anyhow, we have learned to look not just buy books in a rush.It took us a while to get to the Foreign Language Bookshop, as we went to the wrong suburb, but we did eventually find it. We bought a few books actually, English/ Chinese (Mandarin) / Mandarin/ English dictionary, Mandarin Phrasebook + Phrasebooks for Lao & Vietnamese, a Go Book & Tao Teaching (book of Chinese poems) for Geoff + Chinese Fairytales & Myths + a book by Lisa See called Snow Flower & the Secret Fan. I looked for a Chinese Sign Language book, but they didn’t have any in stock, which was ok since Kun bought me a Chinese SL dictionary set last year.

Pearl Market

After spending a while wandering about, we eventually settled on looking at the Pearl Market & Holy Shit, didn’t we spend some money there. We started in the electronics area, we were actually looking for Lithium AA Batteries (not rechargeable), we did eventually find some Energiser Lithium Batteries, at the very end, as the Market was closing (took us 3 hours to achieve), but in the middle we managed to buy; 1×8GB CF Card (prices are rough & in AUD) $30, 128GB Kingston USB Stick $50, Small Battery operated fan (because I was so hot) $2, Car Key Micro Camera $20 (freaky as, but so cool, it looks like a car door opener & the video is quite good), a bag for me (just an over the shoulder thing, that I can fit my Epi-pens, phrasebooks + some food etc in) $12, a set of Chopsticks $8 + 4 AA Lithium Batteries for $10.

You really do have to bargain, don’t buy them for the initial price they give you, no matter how cheap it seems. We made sure that the CF Card & USB & video camera (the car key thing) worked before we bought them (you can ask to test them & they will let you) as you can end up buying something that doesn’t work. The CF Card & USB stick were 2 of the first things that we bought (at the same place) & we probably should have gotten them a bit cheaper, but Geoff reckoned that they were already pretty cheap, so we really didn’t haggle that much at all on those prices. I found that if you start really low & stick to it, quite often when you walk away after they refuse, they end up calling you back & you get it at the price that you wanted (then I think, damn, should I have come up with a lower amount).

I kinda hated being called “Lady” all the time, “Lady you want Bag”, Lady you want scarf….., but worse than that was when people were physically grabbing you. I do not like to be pulled and dragged into someones stall. I realise that they want me to look at their stuff, but that doesn’t make me want to look. Geoff actually had to prise a womans hand off of my arm at one point. We had people block our path & corral us into their shops (I got away, Geoff not so lucky). It does get a little wearing after you have gone past several dozen shops already & need to go past several more & it’s a constant battle to do so, but hey, isn’t that all part of the experience.

We missed the basement with the snakes & Scorpions, so we will go back to the market in the next few days, before we leave Beijing to see that + I might have a look around at the other parts of the market again, great place to buy stuff really.