China Top 10 - #9 and #10

9. Local Markets

LOVED the opportunity to peruse the local markets in all 3 places we went - Hong Kong, Xian, and Beijing. Negotiating is huge, and due to the communication barrier a typical transaction is carried out via calculator - punching in prices back and forth. They haggle like crazy to get you to come into the store: "HELLO - come have a look, hello." I typically offered 10-20% of their inital price, generating the disgusted response of, "No money, no money." Those that really wanted your business would chase you down the street. This typrically came after my smile and "no thank you" to their fake unwillingness to accept my discounted offer.

In Beijing, we went to the Wangfujing Night Market which offered not clothes and souvenirs, but food. Unique food for that matter - disgusting in my mind - including scorpions, sea horse, starfish, lizards. I stuck to a vegetable wrap followed by a late night bowl of noodles instead of splurging. The guys had scorpion, which they described as "crispy." Before being cooked, some were still squirming on the stick. Gross.






10. The People

Last but not least, the people that went on this trip were amazing. It was sad saying goodbye when we left. I felt a genuine sense of remorse inside knowing that my adventure with these incredible people had come to an end. We were all thrown into the situation together mostly without having had prior relationships, and through experiencing a foreign county together we all naturally grew to become friends. I am hopeful that our paths will all cross again in the future. Our China memories would not be the same without them.