It wasn’t a totally sunny day on Sunday, October 4th but it looked like it might get there.

I was still in search of a gift for Lynda so I was pretty excited to go check out Tea Street.

We left the apartment to go look for a cab. Lucille and Curtis had told me it was almost impossible to get a cab in Beijing. We walked down their block and out to the main road where there is usually lots of taxis. After walking about 20 feet we saw a cab coming and flagged it down. The lady driving stopped right away and she knew the area we wanted to go to. Didn’t seem to hard to me but I was just a tourist.

It was about 25 minutes by cab to Tea Street so it would of been a long ride by bus/subway.

Tea Street is a long street lined with stores and stalls that sell everything tea. Tea sets, loose leaf tea, tea tables and other stuff that I have no idea what it was for.

At the start of the street it has plenty of modern stores, some of them were pretty fancy. I found a couple of tea sets that I liked but I wasn’t too happy with the prices so I thought I’d keep looking.

As we walked along the street the shops got smaller and older. Soon we came to the original area of the Teajoymarket area.

We checked out a few shops in the older area and I found a set that to me said “China” without actually saying “China.” When I asked how much it was I was surprised how little it was so I never even tried to barter. I was very happy with the price he gave me.

We went back to another store that I’d seen the same set in earlier and asked how much but they realized I already had a the same one and wouldn’t give me a price other than saying, “About what you paid.”

So I had what I came for, now I had a bag to carry around. Oh well, mission accomplished as far as I was concerned.

As we were leaving Tea Street to head over to the Lama Temple I spotted this.

I’m not a Lamborghini fan but a Huracan is not something I see everyday.

I had to go to China to try Papa John’s Pizza. Wasn’t bad pizza. I’ll have to try it at home one of these days to see if it’s consistent.

After lunch we went to the Lama Temple.

It was a fairly busy place but I never did see any lamas.

 

After checking out some of the Buddhas we went back outside where it was less crowded.

It was temple day as we left the Lama Temple to go to The Temple of Heaven

The Temple of Heaven was a pretty interesting site in a rather large site with plenty of things to see. We started making our way out and walked through a nice park area.

From The Temple of Heaven we went to the Hongqiao Pearl Market to see about some more shopping. It was a nice big indoor market but nothing jumped out at us to buy.

Directly behind the Pearl Market is another market that Lucille wanted to check out as she had heard a lot about the Knock Knock Store. It is a store just for foreigners. You approach an unmarked door and knock on it for entry. We never even got to knock as they have video surveillance and just opened the door when we got to it.

They had quite a bit of stuff there ranging from purses to shoes and clothes to sunglasses – which we all bought – to watches. Lucille replaced the sunglasses she lost at the Great Wall and I haven’t had any sunglasses in years but at least I hadn’t lost any down a squat toilet like she did. I really liked the look of the watches but didn’t bother to ask the prices. I don’t know what a Breitling knock off cost there but I probably still couldn’t afford it.

Hungry from all our shopping and sightseeing, we headed to. Wait for it….

McDonalds. I know, I know. I don’t even eat at McDonalds at home but unlike Curtis, I just had fries and a drink. Fries tasted pretty much like the fries at home.

We were ready to go to next stop – The Legend of Kungfu show at the Red Theatre.

We had seats in the 4th row and unlike the acrobat show, cameras were allowed as long as there was no flash used. I was good with that.

It was a good show and interesting enough, in English with the Chinese shown on the screen about the stage.

Excellent show over it was time to go home. 16, 424 steps today. Didn’t beat yesterday but seems to be consistent now.