Beijing, part 19: Shopping, etc.

One morning, Chunyu, Yüfang, Chunlin, and I went to a pharmacy. Down Chaoyang Bei Lu all the way into town -- almost to the Third Ring Road.

Shelves and shelves of Chinese medicine.

The labels on the cupboards were helpfully in English, too.



Almost English, that is.

The pharmacy had a scale. With shoes, etc., I weighed 207 lbs. My backpack that I'd been carrying every day weighed 13 lbs.

We next went to a clinic for Chunlin's shoulder and back problems. I hoped they could help, but I guessed they'd have the same efficacy as the chiropracter.

Red buckets hanging on the wall near the indoor fountain -- fire extinguishers?

Banners on the medical clinic's walls are the equivilant of certificates in frames in clinics back home. All I could read were the dates. The "0" zero has almost completely replaced the complex "ling" character (which means zero), even on these fancy banners -- completely replaced it on posters, etc. "Arabic" numerals have almost replaced Chinese numerals, in general. Chinese practacality -- use the simpler character that means the exact same thing.







A couple days later, Jason took us along with Shannon and Apple to the mega souvenir store for last-day purchases. First, though, we stopped at the shopping mall for mango smoothies and other desserts. This was in the embassy district. Tons of foreigners from all over the world.







We bought an abacus for Dad, a dragon mask for me, stuffed animals on a string for Mom (and Chunlin's boss), a silk shirt for Christina.



Out of curiosity, I asked a tshirt vendor her price for an "I Climbed the Great Wall." 80 yuan, she said. I told her the asking price on the wall the previous day had been 40 yuan, but we had talked that vendor down to 20. This tshirt vendor quickly dropped her price to 15 yuan, but I wasn't really interested. I already had one! "Why you ask me price if you don't want?" "Sorry! Sorry!" Ah. Silly American.





The next morning, our last day in China, Chunyu took us into Tongzhou (the satellite town near their home) to a big supermarket. We bought lots of candy.

Across the store, a fight broke out between a store clerk and a customer. The two women were grabbing at each other and throwing punches, screaming all the while. What was that about???