Saturday, June 9th
Since it was the weekend, it would be unwise to go sightseeing unless it was early in the day. Mom and I decided to go to the xinhuashudian (Xinhua Bookstore) to buy a proper map of Beijing and some music CDs. We took Bus #116 to Mishidajie and walked from there to Jīngyúhútòng. We took a shortcut through a very new, unfinished mall and entered the bookstore. After looking at Beijing maps for a very long time, we picked out a couple of postcard booklets. We chose two, but planned to buy one depending on the prices. The CDs were downstairs, so we went there next. We didn’t really know what CDs to pick, and they didn’t have headphone stands for listening to samples, so we asked one of the ladies working there for their recommendations. We ended picking out three CDs with calming piba and piano melodies.
Mom and I bought two maps, one postcard booklet with 20 cards for 30 RMB, and three CDs. It ended up being pretty costly because the CDs were expensive. After closing the check, we walked to Donganshichang, looking for the huge food court my mom remembered from 10 years ago. A decade ago, there was a whole floor of small places to eat. My mom remembered it to be on the first floor, but it seemed they moved it to the 5th and 6th floors. We found a nice Shanghai restaurant to eat at. It was kind of fancy, and the food was very good. We ate one congbanmian (18 RMB), one lóng of Shanghai Shaomi (32 RMB), Shanghai rou, and fénzhēngpáigǔ (porkchops with crushed rice). The total was about 94 RMB. We missed out on a 10% discount, because we couldn’t understand what our waiter was saying (speech impediment – not language barrier).
After a good (but costly) lunch, we went upstairs to explore the sixth floor. Turned out, the switched the large food court my mom was talking about to the top floor. There were tons of little places to eat – noodles, dumplings, buns, rice, liangpier, and baobing. Baobing is a Taiwanese dessert made of shaved ice with various toppings such as red bean, peanuts, and condensed milk. We got one for dessert.
On our way out of the mall, I took some pictures of the good food and promised myself to come here again. There was just too much to eat and not enough stomach to eat it. Outside, we passed by a small kiosk with shaded seating in the middle of Wangfujing. My mom purchased a cup of zhāpí for 18 RMB (it’s really supposed to be around 3-6 RMB, but we were in a tourist area). The drink was very refreshing and didn’t taste too bad. After the short rest, we entered an arts and crafts store. The bottom floor had all gold and silver; the second floor had all precious stones and silver; the third floor had all wood and paper crafts; and I’m not sure if there was a fourth floor, but there was a big section with clothes, silk weaving, paintings and wénfángsìbǎo. It was great fun looking at all the professional craftsmenship – no fun in buying though (they were all very expensive). When we finished looking at all the interesting parts of the store, we walked outside. The way to the Bus #104 stop was a seemingly never-ending tongue of concrete in the hot sun. We eventually made it to the stop at Jingyuhutong and finally arrived home on sore feet around 5pm.
~ end of entry, 9:00am, June 13th, Line 13 Subway
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