Rave To The Grave

2) The Summer Palace

Set around the lake are different palaces, each with its own significance, like the palace of Peace and Harmony, The palace of Celestial Purity etc.

Some more random shots of the summer palace.

3) Forbidden City/ Imperial Palace

Unfortunately at the time of my visit, the Forbidden City was under renovation, but I still got to see a lot of it and understand a little bit about its function. Its built in layers, with each layer serving a function. For e.g there's a layer that houses all the guards, and then another layer that houses the weapons and so on. You have to get through all these layers, which have their own courtyards, structures and gates, in order to proceed to the next layer. Its all pretty fascinating.

4) Silk Street Market
This is probably the most popular tourist destination :-). Think of a shop where you can buy a 'Rolex' watch for $40 and you'll get my drift. Knock-offs, all around. Of every kind. I even saw a couple of knocked-up chicks selling knock-offs. That's how much knocking's going on over there. You ask them to knock a little off their base price, and they get so angry that they look ready to knock you off. They'd go "Why yoo do like thees?" and "You so hansom but you very stubbon". Its mostly women selling and boy oh boy do they have every possible trick in the book. Its like a classroom for The Art Of The Deal. Especially if you're a guy. You get hit with all the possible female charm they could throw at you. Of course my regular readers know that FSN is far beyond the reach of the average female charm except when He chooses to accept or acknowledge. They've got everything from 'Burberry' purses [ hope I'm spelling this right. Married guys who accompanied me to Silk Street Market were busy scurrying around to buy 'Burberry' purses to match the printouts that their wives sent with them. They'd buy the purses - which I heard sell at upwards of a $1000 for the originals - take pictures, send them back to the wives, get feedback on unfavorably matching patterns , go back, return them and get new ones. 'Coach' is another popular brand, it seems] to 'Samsonite' luggage to 'Spyder' ski jackets. Take your pick.

They seem to really have the art of quoting a price down to a T. First they poke you in several strategic locations to work the 'female charm'. Then they look at something of yours that they claim to 'really like' and ask you if they can 'see' it. On my first day there, one girl took a 'liking' for my LiveSTRONG bracelet, took it off my wrist in one smooth motion, put it on her hand and put that hand under her shirt somewhere. (Where exactly I couldn't tell for she was rather well endowed and could have hidden away an entire toy train set complete with tracks, stations, crossing lights with batteries included, in the bottom half of her shirt). Of course I wasn't exactly thrilled by all this because as it invariably happens, the spark of realization sped its way through my system faster than Sachin Tendulkar getting out choking on chasing a big total and I realized she was trying to keep me in the shop for as long as possible. For people who wear the LiveSTRONG bracelet because they believe in what it represents (and not one of those airheaded morons who wears it as a fashion statement ) parting with yours is a no no.Anyway I managed to retrieve the Sacred Symbol of Hope with a little bit of insistence. They are also able to observe the way you speak and identify which part of the world you come from.Almost invariably they follow it up with "Where are you from?" and attempt to match it with your accent. Obviously if you're from a developed part of the world, the starting price goes up in leaps and bounds.

However, let me tell you - bargaining with such a hardened lot was an incredible rush. I went back just so I could bargain, hardball and also get something nice, maybe. At the end of my trip, just about everybody there knew me by face and I'd get "I remember you!!! Why you not come in" a whole lot. Some of them even became sort of friendly. I remember May and Yun in Shop number A4-031, who I went to visit everyday. They were roomies and had the most interesting stories to tell me about each other.
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This girl asked me if I wanted to look at some DVD's and took me to this restaurant. Just as I was wondering what was going on, she had me go to this table off to one side. Other people were eating meals off of their tables, but this one in particular was selling DVD's. It was pretty funny. A bootleg stall right in the middle of a restaurant.
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A couple of us went by Bar Street, and right from the moment we stepped off, we had a shadow. This guy was pretty insistent that we follow him to his 'special bar' just about 20 minutes away, where we could 'get girls for special time' whom we could take back to our hotel rooms if we so chose. The shadow stuck to us as we walked all the way to one end and back to where we started. Finally we had to get a little extra firm in establishing forth an unequivocal Nolle Prosequi, after which he thrust his business card in our hands and took off. This was not the only time we were approached - apparently this is rampant all over Beijing because we were sitting at the upscale hotel bar/lounge called Centro (with great Jazz music) and were approached - once by a young lady who just wanted to put her glass on our table (but proceeded to chat up a storm with my American friend, going so far as to ask him what his plans were for the night) and another time by this middle aged guy asking us if we wanted 'special massage' in our room. We were staying at the Kerry Center, and were a little surprised because its supposed to be one of the really good ones there.At Bar Street, We walked by this one bar that seemed to have live music, and on our second pass just 5 minutes later, it had already turned into a Cabaret. This inocuous looking bar had people outside extolling the virtues of its 'performers' and from the time we started crossing the doorway to the time we actually finished crossing, the verbally advertised price of beer went from 20 RMB all the way down to 3 beers for 5 RMB.

I might go back next year - and look around a little more. Maybe around the Olympics......

# posted by FSN 2.4 : 5:18 PM