Sunday morning and early afternoon at Panjiayuan 潘家园 (aka the “Dirt Market”). A grimy 1.5 hour subway and bus ride away from Wudaokou to the largest flea market I’ve ever seen which, according to the Lonely Planet, sells “everything from calligraphy, Cultural Revolution memorabilia and cigarette ad posters to Buddha heads, ceramics, and Tibetan carpets.” There was a lot of looking but not much buying this time, except for Chris who bought a chop carved with his chinese name, 秦克里 (Qin Ke Li). My Panjiayuan Flickr set gives a tiny little taste of what this place is like but you really have to see it to believe it.

Then we took a total financial about-face for dinner: we took Craig to the best burgers in town at, believe it or not, the Grand Hyatt on Wangfujing Street. They are a ridiculous price at 100 RMB a pop (that’s 22 担担面 dan dan noodles at 4 RMB each. Or 66 bottles of water at 1.5 RMB each. And I bought my bike for 90 RMB!) Then you convert the price to USD and realize it only amounts to $12 which seems entirely reasonable for a birthday dinner. Plus the burgers were pretty sensational, actually better than anything I’ve had back home.

Also we finally taste-tested 噢利噢s and 黑白黑s tonight. The verdict: go with the real deal – the 黑白黑s are too soft in texture and leave a weird aftertaste in mouth.