Things to buy in BEIJING

When you travel in Beijing especially with tour or free and easy travel, most of the tour guide will bring you to their identify exclusive shop. This is where they can earn their commission, therefore, beware and spend cautiously, there may be scam or buying unnecessary things here. I will share with you all later in my blog where I have been scammed for buying a high price Chinese herbs.

Of course, not to deny, there are still good things to purchase in Beijing. Hence, it is recommended to do some research if you would like to buy an expensive souvenir whenever you travel. The sales person there will be very pushy to ask you to purchase by mentioned that their sales is still zero, asked for your kindness to support them... Firmly say "NO" and go out from the building, but if you wanted to buy, you will be surprised that you can cut down the price half by using the same tactics.

What things you can consider to buy in Beijing, there are pearl, silk, Chinese tea leaf, jade, handcraft, local snack and books.

1) Pearl
The tour guide brought us to one of the pearl exclusive shop (Freesky Pearl) in the Olympics village. It is one of the favoured, beauty and longevity secrets for Empress Dowager Cixi. It is said that everyday she will ate high quality pearl powder getting from the Summer place's pond. According to "Compendium of Materia Medica" 本草纲目, pearl is non-toxic, rich in calcium, good for the appearance of the skin, improve eyesight and it can calm your heart. You can see the effect only you consume it daily.

A more convenience Bio-gold pearl cream is sold in the shop,  it contains bio-gold, pearl, hyaluronic acid, vitamin E, ginseng extracts, ganoderma.

Pure pearl powder

 2) Jade
There are two categorized of jade: soft and hard jade. China only produced soft jade, therefore all hard jade is imported from Burma. In market, hard jade is more valuable and popular than soft jade, therefore you will be questioning why should we buy it from China? I think the main different is the way they polished and engraved the jade. Jade is loved by Chinese, it is mentioned that it has the life force energy. As human, we nurture the jade and the jade nurture us.

Laughing Buddha jade engraved it is said to bring good fortune to lady

3) Silk
Silk is a natural protein obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of silkworm. The silk made fabric is a luxury item in ancient China and commonly used by rich people and the Emperors. The benefit of using silk helps to prevent skin and nose sensitive, especially good for asthma, cotton will capture dust but not silk.

  
4) Chinese tea leaf
Chinese tea leaf is another things you can consider to purchase in China. There are many different types of tea leaf sold in China, the recommended tea leaf sold in Dr. Tea are Pu erh, TianQi flower, white tea, flower tea... Pur erh tea is produced in Yunnan province, it is good for high blood, diabetes and coronary heart disease. The taste is thick and the price sometime can be very expensive cause it is depends on the age the tea leaf was keep.

Kungfu tea demonstration by the promoter in Dr Tea exclusive shop

TianQi flower and white tea

   

Wangfujing street

Woman like shopping, so do I. There are many places you can spend your money in Beijing, it is a shopping paradise! But unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this round shopping, this was mainly due to my swollen leg and my tiredness.

There are many commercial streets, markets, departmental stores, supermarkets, feature stores...around in Beijing. Too many is my only answer, but the famous tourism spot for shopping area will be Sanlitun Ya Xiu Market, Wangfujing street, Silk market, Qianmen street, Hong Qiao Market (Pearl Market), and others.

We only manage to drop by few places, one of the place is Wangfujing 王府井street. There are many departmental stores around, book stores and a snack street. I like Wangfujing, this is because there have two bookstores around that area - Chinese and foreign languages bookstore. The book is cheap after the conversion rate, it only cost half of the price if I purchase the same book in Malaysia. Due to limited space I purchased for my luggage, I have to sacrifice for most of the book I liked. If not, I think I will bring back the whole bookstore. Haha...  

Wangfujing street

There are lots of departmental stores around the street, if you like shopping rather than book, you can enjoy this place as well

Beijing foreign languages bookstore is located nearby Wangfujing bookstore.

Wangfujing bookstore is one of the biggest bookstore in Beijing, there have 6th floors altogether and full of variety of books.

Besides bookstores, there is a snack street around the corner. This is the place you can try their exotic snack foods and purchase their souvenirs. You can find their street foods such as Tang hu lu  (candied fruits on a stick), Chuanr 串儿 (meat stick), scorpions and bugs stick, fried butter cake and many more. Don't be surprise with the scorpions, sea horse...sticks, according to Chinese, scorpion is an expensive herb with health effects on the prevention of many chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and stroke. Therefore, why not give it a try!

Wangfujing snack street

If you dare to try, it will be a good experience to eat their scorpions, sea horse and star fish stick. It is just RMB20 to 25.

Tang hu lu, a candied fruits on a stick

Fried butter cake

You can buy a variety of souvenirs in Wangfujing street