Beijing, day #2: Campus Tour/ Silk Market/ Wal-Mart

Hello, Hello everyone! This morning we had a campus tour of CUC at 10 o'clock. The students from Australia got in last night around 1 (long after I was in bed). All the Aussies are very nice and I am excited to get to know them better. On our tour we saw the campus, food courts and also the bank so that we could exchange money. When that ended around 11:30 we went to the food court, which really isn't that bad. There were some chinese students who came along on the tour and later they took us to the Silk Market and to Wal-Mart.

Let me tell you a little something about the silk market, it is CRAZY! It's basically just rows and rows and rows of these little shops FULL of everything! Shoes, purses, suitcases, books, DVDs, CDs, jeans, dresses, EVERYTHING! Right when we walked in we had people say, "you want to buy shoes?" "we give you best price!" "Handsome boy, Handsome boy, you want to buy!" It was crazy, they pulled us into their shops, LITERALLY! Once you were in though, you were done for, you HAD to buy something. In one case I wanted to buy a prada wallet for a friend (I knew it was fake even though they said it was real), but the vender, a young lady who was maybe 25 or so, didn't have any right there. "Just one minute, just one minute, we go downstairs and get it for you." So while I was waiting there she talked to me, "where are you from?" "American..." "That your girlfriend?" Referring to one of the Aussie girls I was with, "No." "Do you have girl friend?" "No" "Oh, so you single?" "Yep" "I am single too...." Anyway, here you bargain with prices and they use a calculator to show you the price they are offering, and then you go down WAY low and work back up. Later the girls boss came up with the wallet and she made me come in a sit down, even tough I told her no. So I was sitting there looking through them and picked the one I wanted, "This normally 4500 yaun [over $600 USD], but for you I give the best price, 2,000" "No, No, too expensive. I can give you 250 for it" I only brought 300 yuan cause I over spent the day before. She kept explaning how nice it was, how it was real, how it is so expensive otherwise, blah blah, at one point she put a lighter up to it so show me that it wouldn't burn. I picked out a smaller wallet to make the price go down because she was being difficult, "How much do you have, how much can you spend!?" At this point I was kinda getting nervous because the others I was with left and I was sitting in the corner with no way out. I told here I only had 300, but I could only spend 250 because of taxi and hotel fees (a lie). I finally offered me 200 for the second wallet (after starting at 500 or so), so I countered with 100. "You said 250 before, now you are saying 100! Are you lying! You said 250 before!" So she countered with 150, I said, "No, too expensive. 100 take it our leave it." "150, take it or leave it" so I said, "Alright, then I will leave it" as I pushed my way past here. "Okay, okay! 100!" as she grabbed my wrist. "You are very clever, very clever! What did you say before, 250? Very clever!" I just smiled and walked away. "We see you again soon!" I was just happy to get out of there, I was trying to say no before, but she was blocking me and her boss (a man) was standing at the doorway just staring at me, so I figured buying something was a good idea. I did feel better about my bargaining skills though. This whole ordeal lasted about 20 minutes, it was scary though, being in there alone [my mom is gonna kill me for that].
The Silk Market was a very interesting place. One of the Aussie boys actually got a marriage proposal, I kid you not. One of the ladies at a little shop said, "Oh, you are single! You marry my friend!" pointing to one of the worker girls. He delined, but was given a business card incase he wanted to come back...
It was an interesting day overall, I also bought a polo shirt (which I had to barrow money to do because the lady wouldn't let me leave and I only had 90 yuan, and she wanted 130, after startig at 350, which is $50 USD). We also went to Wal-Mart but no stories from there could compare to these.
Tomorrow we have a lecture and then we meet with the Beijing Organizing Committee (aka the people who run the Olympic Games here in Beijing!).