Today we went to the Forbidden City. It was really big; we didn’t get to see the whole “city”. While we were roaming the grounds there were NBC reporters and Kia, Elyse, Dan, Ramin and Thomas were interviewed. They were asked really random questions like would you hold a party here and obvy their answer was yes! To express how big the forbidden palace was we walked for an hour and didn’t even make it half way through the “city.” With the few exceptions of Kia, Elyse, Diane, Karalyn and Gemma they booked it and managed to get to the other end and apparently there was a beautiful garden. My last comment on how big it was is there were 9999 rooms in the “city”. After that we went to a mall nearby called the oriental plaza. It is the nicest mall in Beijing. We had our first Starbucks stop of the trip in this mall :D!! The mall was quite big with lots of stores. While at this mall Donna, Erika, Jen Marsh and I met two people involved in the Olympics named Kathleen and Don and we are now BBFE’S and we exchanged addresses and are now going to be pen pals the old school way. Since the mall was so big Saraya managed to lose her retainer so she was busy running around the mall looking for it and finally found it at the KFC left on a tray. This mall was also very special because Kia bought her first pair of sunglasses there! After the mall we went back to the apartments, had showers and headed to the Pearl Market. The Pearl market had thousands of different vendors. We all experienced bartering there and it was lots of fun! The people that worked there were a tad bit crazy. I was put in a headlock by one while trying to pull me into a store also while they tried to steal my wrist bands and Canada pins. They also managed to snipe Elyse’s, Donna’s, Erika’s and Ramin’s wrist bands as well. Some other stories about the market were they pulled out Erika’s hair and caressed it and stole the elastic, they were really funny they would always tell us to stop playing games and ask if were okay when we suggested a low price, and KIA managed to make the people angry believe it or not she had some hardcore bartering skills. Overall we came to the conclusion Saraya and Gemma were the best barterers. Saraya spent less than everyone but had double the stuff. The Vendors there were also very stubborn but they wanted our business more so eventually gave in. It was definitely more exhausting than normal shopping but worth the effort because it was a lot of fun.
Jen Bruce
Walnut Grove Secondary
3D Premier Elite Member
