Around the World in 26 Days

Nee-how! After another delicious breakfast, we started off the day by hearing from Rick Timmons, the owner of iSpace, the premium Apple reseller here in China. He gave a lot of good insight into international business and what it takes to start your own company abroad. One interesting thing he said was that learning the language is not nearly as important as having experience and skills. You can learn the language anytime, but if you don’t have the skills of the job to start out, then you’ll have an even harder time. 

We then went to the Forbidden City, which was where the emperors of the past dynasties and their cohorts and concubines resided. The area was actually pretty big, it stretched for about 7000 meters or so. I felt like Mulan walking through it, it looked exactly like that end scene in the movie :) Funniest part of this visit was when we visited the concubines house. All us girls took a picture in front of it and literally 30 Asian men took a picture of us as well. A little creepy, but still hilarious. 

After that I ate lunch at McDonald’s (of course, gotta eat it in every country) which is more similar to American McDo than Europe, actually. Their different McFlurry was Strawberry Oreo. I also got a spicy chicken sandwich, which was REALLY spicy. But still delicious. I’ve seriously eaten at more McDonald’s on this trip than I have this whole past year. It just hits the spot though when you want a little taste of home but with a hint of foreign taste as well. 

I then spent the next 6 hours at the Silk Market. This is seriously one of my favorite places in the world. Nothing here is authentic, but you can’t usually tell and the people who make the counterfeits are good with their craft. I only spent $150, but I got 10 chopsticks, 4 really cool bracelets, two hats, a scarf, 4 ties, a silk robe, a dragon keychain, a magnet, an umbrella, and 4 DVDs. My favorite haggling deal was when I got 4 silk ties for 45 yuan. That’s about $1.50 a tie. That’s right. Mark was probably my favorite haggler. He got FOURTEEN "Beats by Dr. Dre" for $35 each. They’re like 100 times more that price in the U.S. Such a deal. 

I'm in love with haggling. That's all.