I played hooky on Monday so I could spend another day hanging out with my guests. We decided that we would try to get them some clothes made back at the silk market so for breakfast we headed towards a place called steak and eggs that came recommended by Holly and Jason. It was a diner in the middle of Beijing which turned out to be a pretty surreal place to eat at. The food was good.

Walking to the restaurant we got to walk through Ritan which contains a lot of the embassies including the US one. I saw a building that I guessed had to be the US embassy and asked the guard who was not to keen on answering me so I started poking around the fences looking for a sign until I heard Aunt barb say that I should probably start moving. It was the US embassy and apparently they do not like people poking around it.

At the silk market I left my mom and aunt to fend for themselves in getting their clothes made while I went to look for more pant / shorts. This time I lost all inhibitions and stripped down in the middle of a crowded market to try shit on. I was not buying more presents for people who probably did not want them. At the first stall the woman kept telling me the pants would fit so I took off my pants and showed her they wouldn’t. It was not pretty.

The next stall I went to the woman told me they had sizes that were too big for me. I told her to give me the fattest size she had. I am a huge fat bastard so give me your largest size I believe were the exact words I used. I tried them on and they were way too big. She became my favorite market person ever at that point. We had to go down two more sizes to get one that fits so I bought a couple and headed back to see how the custom clothing adventure was going.

Not as well as expected, the clothes were cool and might fit but the price was pretty high. So we shopped a little more for fun stuff and headed out. We wandered back through the embassy district and towards Ritan park which is one of the four temples in Beijing, the sun temple. On the way there we saw the North Korean embassy which was pretty cool. it was larger than the US embassy and the guard there really did not want me stopping outside the gates to take a picture so you will just have to imagine it in your mind. I am willing to push the limits at a market but this guy had a machine gun.

After seeing the happy leader pictures we got to the park. There was a yoga studio in the middle which was pretty cool. The rest of the park was nice as well. Lots of spots to sit and relax and not too many people. Overall I am very impressed with the amount of parks here and their upkeep. We went to the altar in the middle and then back out.







We decided to walk up to the YaXiu market which is a little past Bodhi and which turned out to be a pretty fur piece from where we were. We walked for about an hour and saw lots of fun things on the way. As we were sitting for a second we saw a woman throwing up profusely out of a bus window, proving to my aunt that people really do throw up at the drop of a hat here. We also saw a police officer asserting his will on the populace. He asked a couple of workers for papers and then tried to pull over a bicycle rider who completely ignored him.



After finally getting to the market we decided to skip it and grab drinks instead. We did this and stopped to get yet another foot massage after this. We also went to South Beauty for dinner and tried the meat in hot oil that everyone other table appears to get. It was not as good as I had expected but the fish was good as always.

After that we took our tired bodies home and passed out.