Initially we planned a Beijing tour day for the four of us, but unfortunately Gerard has work during weekends and Josi have OT this weekend, so eventually there were only Jordan and I and Jordan's relative to take us around.
While we were on the subway to meet Jordan's relative, we saw this young guy inside the moving subway with a guitar and was singing for the passengers. Some passengers generouslly gave some token as appreciation to this young man, I also gave a token as my appreciation (I gave 6RMB, my favourite number; but most people just gave 1RMB). He's a very nice singer. The sound of guitar and his voice just enlightened all passengers in the subway, everyone was looking at him, some even smiled (including me). It was very refreshing for a dull and grey winter; and it is especially exciting inside this crowded cabin.
We left home at around 12.30pm and started to wonder where we should go before meeting Jordan's relative at 3pm. We were told that he will take us to 798 Factory, 七九八工厂. This is located at the north of Beijing, and it was used to be an old and abandoned factory site from the 80's. Now it has a world known arts community. The old buildings from the 798 Factory was kept and maintained in the old traditional look. Tourists can go into any of the galleries inside the strong heavy metal frames and structures of the old factory. 798 Factory is wide spread with little galleries and showrooms in many places, the overall environment is very calm and peaceful. T
he metal frames 
and some of the sculptures placed on the streets are still quite rusty and to be honest, quite scary for me. I didn't enjoy the moment when I turn around the corner and suddenly see a massive sculpture of a head on the ground.....it's not a pleasant feeling. But this is art, isnt' it? haha. There are little cafes around the factory, the lazy environment is really suitable for a warm cup of cappuccino in a blizzard winter day. 
As soon as we entered into the 798 Factory from the West gate, my eyes were captured by this poster of a gallery. The theme and title of this gallery is called "only sell to Obama". I was like "huh???!!!!!" What is this???!?!?! I pointed at the gallery and we all decided to go in and have a look. The gallery is underground, and all the 'printings' on display are pictures of the popular CD covers that the artists collected in the past, and all these covers all have a common thing: they were all clipped in one corner, so there's a little broken piece on the CD. Clipped CDs in China means that these CDs will not be on sale anymore, they are pretty much useless. Although some businessmen will still sell them at a lower price but technically these CDs are being destroyed. Although the idea was interesting, but I don't understand how is this gallery related to 'only sell to Obama'?????? 
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The most exciting piece of art of me is the Optimus Prime sculpture made with broken and rusty car pieces. (see photos). I remember seeing this news online that in the He Nan province of China, some farmers put together the world's largest optimus prime sculpture by using waste car pieces. I think this one in 798 Factory is not as big but it looks so amazing!! It's completely built by using waste, haha, such a 'recylable' piece of art. '
We finished touring 798 Factory in around one and a half hour. After that we decided to 'transfer' ourselves to the central of Beijing, haha, again by hours of taxi + bus + subway, and eventually we arrived at Wang Fu Jing王府井. This is one of the most famous shopping centres in Beijing. Wangfujing Shopping Street starts from the Chan An Street East as the south end, and finishes at China Art Muesem at the north end, it is around 1.5km long. In Wangfujing shopping street, there are shops for daily products, markets, supermarkets, electricals, clothings and shoewears, jewelleries and restaurants etc. 
There are many international brand stores in Wangfujing, e.g. Omega, Sasa, Haagen Dazs, Nike and etc. You know how Chinese businessmen are very smart and capable in 'mocking' a foreign brand? Haha, I saw this brand called "Chicedo" (see photo), haha, do you think this is a mock version of "shiseido"???? I think it is, lol personal opinion. All the ads and fonts used for the poster are the same as shiseido, only with a different (but yet similar) name. One thing I don't quite understand is how did this brand got top Chinese artists like Fan Bingbing and Chen Hao to endorse their products? Or did they just downloaded a photo for the poster? As we walk along different shops and enjoy observing consumer behaviours around the area, our eyes (well, my eyes) weere caught at this particular shop called Snoopy Jackets. It's a store selling jackets and winter wear (e.g. gloves and scarfs). The promotion in store at the moment is jackets betwen 99RMB to 199RMB! This is really cheap, even in comparison to Chinese market price, and the jackets are mostly down feather jackets for the winter. I picked a long piece white jacket and I got it for 99RMB. Haha, I'm so happy!!!!!!!!! Then we we offered to go upstairs of the store for a lucky dip draw or to receive a free gift. We went upstairs and it was a floor selling winter wool boots and jewelleries like gold and jade. We got offered to either pick a little pearl as a gift (a really crap pearl) or a lucky dip in a pile of scratchies. and guess what?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got the first prize!!! Even the sales person was really surprised and kept on saying only 3 customers out of a 100 will have a chance of picking out this draw (and she may be lying), and my prize is to be able to buy jewelleries for with a discount of 92% off, which is paying 8% of the price only. Most of the necklaces and bracelets there are around 2000-3000RMB, so that means I'll still have to pay 160-249RMB. I really can't tell whether those jewelleries are fake or authentic, and the sales lady kept on saying they have certificates and I can take those jewelleries I buy to get it verified, and if there's anything wrong I can bring them back. Haha, I doubt it.... but i shouldn't really buy things just because there's a discount, but rather when I actually need it. I'm just happy nonetheless that I actually win something!!! (well, not something, but the fact that I was lucky). I never win anything from lucky draws or dips, and I'm just so happy that I did this time, haha, such a happy feeling.
We walked into a store called Foreign Languages Book Store and part of the store was selling small electrical appliances, e.g. camera and batteries etc. We asked a price for my camera's battery and the woman offered us a local branded battery for 240RMB, then when we asked for the original packet she gave us a price for 480RMB!!! What da hell!! Anyway, so she kept on trying to sell us the local branded battery (which even have a different code of batter comparing to what I wanted) and said that it's enough for the camera; and when we showed signs of unwillingness to buy the battery, she said she can offer us 180RMB for the local brand battery, and if we really want the original brand (Sony) but don't wanna pay 480RMB she can just open up a camera and sell us that battery for a cheaper price. This is just such a weird shop and shop assistant, we decided to leave and immediately this shop assistant said "so what do you mean now! Are you only coming in to ask for a price! You never wanted to buy stuff isn't it!!" She's so rude and so unreasonable!!!!
We quickly left the shop, the shop assistant is still yelling things behind us and complaining about us. We walked from the shop, walked around the corner and entered another electrical shop. This shop offered us 280RMB for the Sony battery and 200RMB for the local brand. After haggling and haggling, eventually we pinned it down to 180RMB for the Sony battery, which is cheaper than buying it in New Zealand!! HA! That rude women is full of lies when she told us she can't go lower than 480RMB!!! HA!!!!!
The most interesting place at Wangfujing is the street food. Well, they're not so much of a street food because the little stores were organised very neat and everyone have the same uniforms. We first went to the stores alongside of a street, and the first store that caught our eyesight was the candied fruits! But to our huge shock, they're selling one skewer of candied fruit (e.g. kiwifruit, pineapple, strawberries, shaw, grapes etc) for 15RMB!!! （see photo) This is insane!! I remember the first skewer of candied shaw we bought on the street was 1RMB, and even the one outside Peiking University that I purchased was 2RMB, this place is selling for 15RMB!!!!!!!!! This is insane. Also, I especially didn't like how these employees pick up their food and trying to force it into your hands and make you buy it. It gets quite annoying and rude after sometime.
We found some many 'Chinglish' at these stores, like 'Ice-Cren', haha, it supposed to say 'Ice Cream'. LOL!!! Also things like "Fried Mihoutao" means "Fried kiwifruit", "Fried Juices" supposed to be "Fried fruit skewers", haha, how can we fried juice??? "hami-melon" is the Chinese way of saying "honeydew melon", and how can the same advertisement use "fried" in one column, and then jused the Pinyin of Fried in Chinese for another column?? These ads just cracked me up!!!! haha, Chinglish!!
As we continued to walk down the street, we saw stores selling fried insects (e.g. bugs, silk worms, worms, scorpios etc), and to my huge surprise, there were starfish for sell at 15RMB as well...This is so out of my expectation. Then at a particular store where I was taking photos of the food, one of the guys saw me and immediately use a piece of paper to cover up the name of tha particular plate of skewers. I wasn't quite sure what he was trying to cover up until I put away my camera, and I see a sign printing: Sheep Penis. This is just too much out of my comfort zone. 
Along the stores there are many interesting street food available (but all at an extremely, ridiculous, unbelievable, high price): pineapple rice, skewers, candied fruits. There's this one interesting thing, haha, it looked really weird, it's like a fried egg with many weird long stick looking things coming out from the bottom of the egg (see inserted photo). When I asked the store person what that thing was, he answered it's one of the most traditional Beijing style snack, and it's fried eggs with fries!!! haha, those long sticks coming out from the bottom of the egg are fries!!! and this is traditional Beijing snack??!?! haha, laugh out loud! How can fries be a traditional Chinese food??? hahahaha 
Eventually we decided to stop visiting this street and move into that little area where they called it 王府井小吃街, Wangfujin Snack Street, just like it's name suggests, it's for snacks. I guess the street we visited earlier is newly opened, to attract more tourists and be more convenient to customers who are on the other side of this massive shopping street. Wangfujing Snack Street has been here for many decades and they also sell gifts and items that represents China. Although my parents and their friends told me not to get food from this place because they're really expensive and unhygiene, I still tried a few things, hehe.
I bought a candied shaw and orange skewers for 5RMB, although it's cheaper than what we saw earlier in the other snack street, but I bought it for 2RMB outside Peiking Uni. HOWEVER, I still like this very much, haha, I really like the candied fruit skewers. As we continued to walk down the snack street, we saw things that just make us feel sick. Apart from those insects that I mentioned earlier, I saw at this particular store that is also selling fried insect skewers there was a very scary thing. It was a skewer of scorpios, which is quite 'normal' for the Chinese market, however, some of the scorpios on the skewers are still alive!!! Can you believe that?? I can't! I looked at it for so long, rubbed my eyes, looked away and look back to the skewers, OMG, they are still alive!!!! This is crazy!!!
During this tour I bought a few gifts, mostly Chinese arts and culture related souvenirs, I personally really like them, hehe, and I hope my friends will like them too. There's one thing that I really recommend everyone to try, it's the traditional Beijing honey yoghurt. It's sealed by paper inside this clay pot jar (see photo), and once you buy it (1RMB) you put a straw through the paper and enjoy the honey flavoured yoghurt. To be honest, I have no idea how clean this thing is, but I can sure tell you it's soooo tasty!!! I also saw some arts on display, like for example, there's this guy that make clay sculptures (see photo) and paint it so it look EXACTLY like you (in a cartoon way). It's so amazing!! But pretty pricy too. I am just so amazed at how talented these artists are, it's just like seeing a mini-you, so cool! Another thing that really sparked my excitement is an art that can be eaten, called "Blown Candy 吹糖". I still remember when I was little I saw stalls where people use melted sugar to draw something on paper (e.g. dragon, rabbit or whatever) and when it's dried you can pick up this sugar painting and it'll your candy. This one I saw at Wangfujin is the advanced version, lol, basically the guy at the stall will make the shape of the animals that you want and blow into it to make it bigger and 3D like. Haha, this is called development!!My crazy night at Wangfujin ended with the alive scorpios image in my mind. To be honest, I don't feel hungry at all after seeing that alive creature >_<
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