Despite my nearly being marked as a terrorist for trying to carry my leatherman through airport security, we all managed to make it to Beijing. See, I use it for changing strings, and I accidentally put it in my backpack rather than my suitcase. The suitcase, of course, had already been checked (perhaps they should have you go through security first to avoid this sort of thing...), so after about half-an-hour of arguing with a... guy... most of which involved me standing around waiting while he went off to do something else... I was finally given a large cardboard box which I could put it in. Fortunately, I was wearing a sweater that I was able to remove and wrap around the tool for padding (the box was still easily recognizable at Beijing baggage claim as the one cardboard box that looked like it had lost a fight with a sledgehammer.. but luckily there were no holes). A nice thing was that when I opened my guitar case to consider putting the leatherman in there and checking that, the... guy... took one look at my guitar and agreed that an instrument that nice should be carried on.

Since this first day in Beijing was previously unscheduled, we were allowed to roam free for the day and explore. Nate and Chris read about a market of interest in a tour guide, so since nobody else had any ideas of what to do, we all decided to tag along. At least, that was the plan. However, we had far too many people for a single taxi, and it turned out that simply saying "Tiananmen" to the drivers (they didn't even understand anybody's first request of "Forbidden City"), brought everybody to a completely different location in the vicinity of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. So Philip, Mike Eng, and myself, were left to wander around on our own in search of this market that Nate and Chris had spoken of. We never found it, but we did get directions from two American girls to another large market area (for the record, I had been arguing to go a different direction from where the girls said, which we later learned would have brought us right to the market that Nate and Chris were talking about.. but it all worked out and we had a good time, so I'm not complaining), and we encountered a Chinese man who spoke a bit of English and became our guide through the market. This was rather suspicious... he originally approached Mike, who is half Chinese, and asked him if he was Chinese. I still don't get this approach. I mean, Americans don't go up to random people on the street in, say, San Francisco, and ask, "Excuse me, are you American?" But whatever his original intentions were, one conversation led to another, and soon he was following and leading us to and through this crazy market area (which is good, because I'm sure we would've gotten lost there otherwise... at least, I would've). There are no pictures of this area (which also applies to most markets of this sort that we visited in China) because it did not seem a safe environment to bring out a camera. Somebody actually tried to steal Mike's camera while he was looking around a shop!

It was here that I got to witness my first big price negotiation... although it was quite unintentional. Philip had been looking at a handbag that was originally priced at around 600 yuan, I believe (8 yuan ~= $1). After the intial haggling phase of asking for ~1/3 of the price and getting the saleswoman to bring the price down to probably about 300 yuan (I was not witness to this part of the negotiation), he decided he'd rather keep looking around at other shops. Apparently she really didn't like that idea, as she followed us a few shops down, tugging at Philip and begging him to reconsider! Philip was not acting.. he really wanted to keep looking elsewhere. Finally, he could no longer resist her desperation, and settled for about 90 yuan. For the price, he was quite satisfied. (He also refused to let me borrow the handbag when I was looking for something, other than my backpack, to carry my camera.. but this was probably a good thing, as I probably would have been even less comfortable carrying a handbag than a backpack... what I really needed was a strap to wear the camera around my neck or something) However, our "guide" pointed out to me that the shopkeeper's persistence indicated that the handbag must be extremely low quality.

All the while we were suspicious of this guy, waiting to see what his con would be. But he seemed honest, and when finally we said that we would like to check out a place called the Friendship market (sort of a large department store of various Chinese stuff.. from musical instruments to art to clothing to alcohol... the prices are higher and there is no bargaining, but the quality of goods is probably a little more reliable) in another part of Beijing, he happily found us a cab and told the driver exactly where we wanted to go. He invited us to have tea with him before we left, but we politely declined. His motives still baffle me. Maybe he just wanted to practice his English? (but then, why would he ask "are you Chinese?"? was he hoping to speak to a Chinese-American? I guess I'll never know...)