Day 4, More shopping + Malaysian Food

So once again the morning started with a crazy rush to the airport, and a less than stellar Chinese style breakfast on board a China Eastern Airlines flight. We swung back by our hotel dropped our junk off and went for some lunch at our new favorite restaurant near the pearl market. We shopped some more spending an insane amount of time helping Betty buy a Wii. The Wiis sold by our favorite and highly recommended electronics guy (Who's name and shop I won't mention here) are Japanese models chipped to play lots of games easily available in the market place. We decided to test it pretty thoroughly on the spot, and I had to teach them how to sync the wiimote to the machine. The menus are all in Japanese, but as long as you buy games in English it works fine. After surviving the super lengthy purchase process, It was time for dinner at our favorite restaurant in Beijing, Cafe Sambal. We had a big group and found a lady standing outside the pearl market with a van looking for some people to give a ride to. She was charging at least double what a cab would have cost, but since we would have needed at least 2 and possibly a third cab, it suddenly seemed like a good deal. Fortunately Betty knows the neighborhood so well that when our driver didn't know whee she was, Betty knew exactly where to go. The restaurant is hiding in a Hutong but is filled with the most delicious Malaysian food you ever laid eyes on. Exhausted from a full day we crashed early.
To start the post I've given you a look at Xi'an's calligraphy street, below, a little bit of awesome grammar for your viewing pleasure. I'm accepting definitions for the word "areaturnover".

Day 2,Shoppers Paradise?

On our second day in Beijing We had much shopping to do. We rolled out of bed at 9, and grabbed new travel buddy Shin and rolled out to the framing store. We knew it was near the workers stadium, but unfortunately our cab driver dropped us off on the wrong side of it. We strolled around and put in our framing order in, and then it was off to experience the Pearl Market.
I learned a quick lesson on the way that if I memorized the Chinese names for places, I'd actually understand when the cabbie asked me to confirm. (The name of the Pearl Market is Hongqiao [pronconced: hong chow])Since I was the tallest in our party most of the time I had front seat privileges, which also meant having navigation and negotiation duty. We never visited the pearl market on our first visit, so this would a new experience. We made a side trip to the noodle restaurant across the street from the pearl market and were pleasantly surprised by its awesomeness. Unfortunately I don't know what it's English name is, but I recommend it.

When you walk in some one in front yells something across the restaurant and several waiters seem to compete to serve you. There was a very tasty eggplant dish, and a really great sweet/spicy chicken dish with nuts. With full stomachs we walked back across the catwalk for some power shopping. A few gadgets and purses (from the super secret around the way purse shop) and some scarves later it was time to meet up with the other half of our party for some shopping and dinner at the Silk Market. We all had walkie-talkies that had impressive range, and we arranged to meet at one of the coffee shops on the street level. We grabbed a few things from our favorite jeweler, and then it was time for some Peking Duck at Quanjude. This branch seemed a little more touristy than the one we'd eaten at in November but our duck and side dishes were still very delicious. After Dinner we made an early night of it, since we had a 7 a.m. flight to Xi'an the next morning.