As I have mentioned before Media Village has 7 restaurants. I am on the side that has 4 and work with 3 other operations managers. Starting today we will be serving staff meals everyday from 7am - 8pm. July 25th is when the media arrives and we start our 24 hour service. Today went very well. I worked the 5am-3pm shift which was nice considering I am a morning person. We pretty much worked everyday this week. I was able to have a day off on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning me and a few others decided to go to the Silk Market. For those of you who don't know the Silk Market is where you go to buy things dirt cheap. 90 percent of the stuff is probably not real but it is really cheap. We took a taxi to the Silk Market that took about 30 minutes. I was always under the impression that the Silk Market was outside but was happy to find out that it is indoors and has air conditioning. Right off the bat it just looks like a giant flea market. I took two steps in and realized it is a giant flea market on crack. As you walk the aisles people stand in front of their booth shouting, "mister mister...buy a watch" "sir do you need jeans" "rich American buy from me." After walking down one aisle I kind of wanted to go home.
As I continued wandering I found a place that sells Polo. I asked the woman how much the polo is and she says 120 rmb. I tell her no way I will give you 30. For a few minutes we go back and forth until we agree on 45 rmb. Doing the math that is about $ 6.80. 10 Polos later I had only spent 66 usd. When I left her booth other sellers saw my huge bag and started screaming and pulling on me to buy more. It was horrible. I did not enjoy being pulled on and them all coming in front of me trying to stop me to buy something. I needed a bag to hide the shirts.
I went down to the bag section and found a backpack I wanted. The woman tells me its 1500 rmb and I tell her I spent all my savings on shirts. She laughed and goes "you are a funny man, for that I give you bag for 1200." I responded with, " I thought I was funnier then a 300 rmb discount." She didn't get it. We continued debating the price on the calculator. She punched in 1100 and hit the clear and punched in 500. Back and forth we went. She hit 1000 I hit 300. I was kind of cornered which made me uncomfortable so I tried to say forget it I will go else where. The woman then takes my shirts out of the bag and starts putting them in the backpack. She keeps going, "ooo so much room in this bag...it very nice." Once she packs the bag she puts it on my shoulders and tells me I look great it in. After about 10 minutes I pull out 200 rmb and say take it or leave it. Just my luck she accepted it and I walked away with a 30 dollar bag.
All in all the Silk Market was crazy. I plan to go back and possibly get a custom made suit or some winter gear for football season. If anyone wants anything let me know and I will see what I can do.
Now for my 17 dollar meal. My Aunt Lori forwarded to me an article from Vogue Magazine about this guy who toured Beijing restaurants. He listed his favorite places to go. We have all been sick of eating around here so last night we pulled the list out and picked a dumpling house. The front desk wrote the address down and told the cab where to go. There were 4 of us for dinner and were all American. We get to the place and they give us two menus.
A quick side note: every place we go out to eat the never give you a menu per person. If you are 4 people you are lucky to get 2. I have no clue why this happens.
The menu is all in Chinese and no pictures. Pictures usually get us through every meal. Obviously when ordering dumplings pictures wouldn't help but an English menu would have been nice. We called the waiter over and after 5 minutes of playing charades we were able to determine what was pork, beef, and vegetable. My friends do really good animal noises. We ordered 3 different types of dumplings from each category, pancakes, and another dish. We had about 60 dumplings total and 2 rounds of beer. The food was incredible. This guy was dead on.
The bill comes out and it was 114 rmb. The 4 of us were shocked it was that cheap. 114 rmb is 17 usd. In the states a meal like that would have been well over 100 bucks. Since the place was so good we are going to make sure we hit every place on the restaurant list and I will be sure to keep you posted on what we find.
I am heading out for drinks and dinner. Until next time.
The menu is all in Chinese and no pictures. Pictures usually get us through every meal. Obviously when ordering dumplings pictures wouldn't help but an English menu would have been nice. We called the waiter over and after 5 minutes of playing charades we were able to determine what was pork, beef, and vegetable. My friends do really good animal noises. We ordered 3 different types of dumplings from each category, pancakes, and another dish. We had about 60 dumplings total and 2 rounds of beer. The food was incredible. This guy was dead on.
The bill comes out and it was 114 rmb. The 4 of us were shocked it was that cheap. 114 rmb is 17 usd. In the states a meal like that would have been well over 100 bucks. Since the place was so good we are going to make sure we hit every place on the restaurant list and I will be sure to keep you posted on what we find.
I am heading out for drinks and dinner. Until next time.
2 comments:
Hi David - Hope you took some pictures in the Silk market!
Uncle G
I run a website that helps newcomers to Beijing get a good meal when they're in town. It has bilingual picture menus, addresses, and maps. Here's an example of one of my favorite restaurants, Hua Jia Yi Yuan. The site is called chinabites.
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