July 23, 2010  Beijing

Brian and me at the Fabric Market.

   Malva, Brian and I went to the fabric market to get material for a suit and some shirts for Brian and a traditional Chinese dress called a qipao for me.  The fabric market is a district where lots of small fabric shops are set up next to each other.  Arranging competing small businesses in one area is very common in China.  I guess this makes comparison shopping easier, but it also means that one shopping trip may take you all across town.   
   After the Fabric Market the Burrahm's driver, Li Jian took us to Lao Beijing, a very old Beijing restaurant. It was very loud and colorful, with vases and jars of pickled snakes and who knows what.  Waiters shouted across the restaurant to each other and groups of friends or businessmen out to lunch shared large bottles of Tsingtao.  The food was excellent.

My favorite dish!

    We discovered my favorite dish, which is simply cucumber mashed up with garlic, vinegar and oil.  Yum.

What we have in the above picture we have a spicy peanut dish in the upper left corner, a preserved cabbage, onion and beef dish to the right, and at the bottom left a celery, carrot and lotus root dish.

 After lunch we headed to the Pearl Market.  The shopgirls here are also hyper-aggressive, as were the vendors at the food market which was our next stop.

Some noodles and pancakes.

The butcher.

The black skinned chicken is su

Live shrimp.

Live shellfish.

Pretty crabs.

 

After we picked up some groceries we headed back to the apartment.  Malva made some stir-fry with dragonfruit as a side dish.