We have been in Beijing now 12 days, in that time we have visited Ikea, Super Wal-Mart, Jenni Lou Stores, and a number local shopping areas. The local shopping areas are fun as you get to negotiate the prices and/or walk away if you don't get your price. For example, Terry needed a warm winter coat as the day time temperatures have been 23-29 degs. We went to the silk market and found a goose down coat for her. The starting price was 3,800 RMB, I countered at 300 and held firm - after a few minutes of hard negotiating we walked away to look for different styles and colors, with the sales girl walking after us yelling "make me a good offer". Just before closing we returned and resumed negotiations - me at 300 and the girl at some ridiculous number. Eventually we arrived at 500 RMB - which I consider to be 100 RMB too much, but it was closing time, the snow was falling and we had a 15 min walk back to the hotel.
Then the girl in the stall across the way came over to sell me a scarf. "Did I want my beutiful wife to freeze to death on the way home, you need to buy this scarf ". Mind you she was in on all the coat negotiations, so she knew we just bought a heavy down coat for 500 RMB. So where does she start at for a 5$ scarf - 500RMB - so I countered at 30. Then we got into joking around and I told her I would pay twice her price if she could guess how many kids we had, but if she missed I got the scarf for free (mind you it is worth about 6 RMB). So the two of them commenced to guess, after about 10 guesses they gave up. Unfortunately I did not hold her to the bet and get the scarf for free. I think I paid her 150 - mostly for the entertainment.
On Friday Terry went shopping with 6 of the ladies from church and found a place like the silk market but the sales girls are not so aggressive - in fact no one even grabbed her arm or tried to box her into their booth (now where is the excitement of the hunt?). This place is near the new US embassy and has great rock shops and really cool flower stalls. We went back on Saturday and saw some amazing fountains and wood cravings.
Our branch is large - about 100+ families. I think it is as big as the Glen Loch or College Park Wards. The people are fantastic, really nice and they all have interesting stories of how they come to be in BJ. We had a Valentine's Day diner/dance Friday night that was well attended and a lot of fun. We have people from all over Europe, lots of Koreans and many Chinese who have either foreign passports or are married to a foreign passport holder. The missionary effort is doing well, there are at least 12 investigators. They even had a YM do his Eagle Project the week before we arrived. The 1st weekend in March is District Conference so that should be interesting.
The other branch (BJ 3rd has more families and less empty nesters) is conducting a 3 month trial program of meeting for sacrament first in small groups in designated homes, then only family units meeting in their own homes. The purpose is to test out how the people cope during times when political conditions are such that leaving home to attend sacrament at a building is not safe. This has been useful in some West Africa countries.
It looks like we will really enjoy our branch and living in BJ.
