This is" The Great Subway Adventure" ! Jeanne Boren had a meeting to go to in Beijing at 10:00 Thursday. Nelson was going with her to lead the way so Ernie and I went along too. Actually, Nelson was going to a new shopping area while Jeanne was at her meeting :)
We left at 6:30 am, got the Bullet train to Beijing and then...Nelson led us to the subway. The Beijing subway has 10 lines and it's only 2 yuan ($.32) to ride as far as you want. He and Jeanne had tried it our a few weeks ago. In Beijing it was morning rush hour and the subways were packed! Jeanne, Nelson and I stepped on and Ernie was in the threshold. The attendant that was outside gave Ernie a push in his back(Nelson mentioned linebacker) and we were all in!!..like sardines! It was an adventure all day. We changed lines after about 3 stops and then changed again a few stops later. Every train was full, and then some. We walked Jeanne to her meeting and were invited back for lunch.
The shopping area was either a short subway ride or a 20 minute walk. We opted to walk. It was a beautiful morning, and a long 20 min. walk. But it was worth it! We bought some fun things.The building was 5 stories of little stalls. The salespeople were not too aggressive and they could be bargained with.
I bought a D & G coat for spring. Dark red ,short trench coat. After I got the right size ,XXXL ,we haggled the price. She started out at 880 yuan ($138.00) I said NO and then she asked me for my best price. I said 130 yuan ( about $20.00). She didn't like that, but that's what we've been paying for coats. We haggled for awhile and then we walked away. She quickly called us back and Ernie paid 135 yuan for it. I would have held out for 130. As I got out my money from my money belt she asked for "ice cream money". I refused.
We bought a few other things, but what we were really looking for were North Face coats. We were trying to haggle for some for 130 yuan when Nelson came up and said he found them for 100 yuan! His salesgirl was happy to sell us four of them.
We took the subway back to get Jeanne and enjoyed a delicious lunch with her hostess and the other 5 women from her meeting.
Then we got on the subway and went to the Pearl Mart. Ernie chose pearls while I looked around. It was a 5 story building and every jeweler only sold pearls. You've never seen so many different colors and styles.
Right around the corner was the Toy Mart. Luckily it was only one story!
On the way to the next subway station we passed a man selling kites. Did I say passed? Not before buying a few.
Now back to the train station. There are 3 train stations and I got us on the wrong subway going to the wrong train station. At the same time Nelson and Jeanne missed the subway that we were on, but they showed up 5 min. later. We got on another subway and went the other direction and eventually got to the right train station. We had to change subways 3 times. But it was only $.32!
Taking a taxi would have put us in hours of heavy traffic and cost a lot more.
When we got back to Tianjin the line to get a taxi was about an hour wait. So we decided to walk outside and try to find one. It was such a nice night. We walked for about a half hour before we found a taxi. We got home about 7:30. What a day!! We slept well last night
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