Beijing - Day 7 (Shopping)

More shopping today. First stop is the Beijing New World Shopping Mall (北京新世界中心) in Chongwen - 5 levels and 70,000 sq. m. of world-class shopping (at world-class prices, too). After spending hours and hours here, we left and discovered an outlet store across the road. Here we go again. For lunch, DIL brought us to Golden Jaguar (金钱豹) at The Place, a buffet restaurant he frequents when he's in town. Known as the largest buffet restaurant in Beijing, Golden Jaguar has seats for 1000 people and 700 different food selections - from Cantonese to Japanese to Thai to French to Vietnamese to Taiwanese to Korean to Western. And these are not just foodcourt dishes; some are delicacies. Even the drinks range from soft drinks, fruit juices, soups, teas, beers, etc. All that for RMB 200.

What better way to digest all that food by having another shopping spree at Wangfujing? By late afternoon, DIL and SIL went back to the hotel, while we continued on to the Silk Market. SIL's Dick Tracy 3G wristphone is having Bluetooth problems, so we wanted to replace it. I was expecting stiff resistance from the store staff. Heck, I don't believe we were even a receipt for the purchase yesterday. Anyway, in my best Mandarin, I explained to the guy the situation. He played with the watch for a few minutes, was satisfied that the phone really had a BT issue, and gave us a new one. Was surprised the guy didn't give us a hard time. We went around to the console shops and bought myself a hacked Wii console (made in Korea), some game discs, and some accessories to go with the console. The console and the extra controller cost RMB1400, which is much cheaper than Greenhills prices. Games at RMB10 each and the accesseroes for RMB100. At SIL's request, we had dinner at the KFC downstairs. As usual, the place is packed with people just sitting around, and the ceiling is leaking airconditioner water, so we finished our meal upstairs.