Glasses City, Beijing

Imagine a city block sized mall, four floors that sells nothing by
glasses. That place exists in Beijing, and it is overwhelming.
Overwhelming in the best sense. Also, many of the glasses are
incredibly inexpensive and they'll make them for you in about 20
minutes.

After many hours of looking and a much needed lunch break, we returned
and I pulled the trigger on a new pair. Lens and all they came in at
just under US$25. I've never paid so little for glasses. So far they
are working out well. I'll try to get up a picture soon.

One of the things that really struck us though was how bad a mall like
this must be for the individual store owners. Typically, I spend a
long time in a single glasses shop when I am in the market, but at
Glasses City if they didn't have anything interesting there are
literally 200+ other places to look for the same product. Convenient
for the customer to be sure, but I can't imagine how frustrating it
must be for the store owners.

If you're a glasses wearer and are in Beijing, I would highly
recommend checking this place out.

Glasses City is located near the Jinsong stop on subway Line 10.

Beijing

After getting over some technical difficulties, I hope to be able to
post more frequently moving forward. Rodney has thankfully posted
much on our Mongolia experiences, so I'm just going to jump into our
time thus far in Beijing.

We've been here for less than a week and I've already fallen in love
with this place. The city is huge but incredibly well laid out. It
has everything to offer - tons of sites to see, good shopping, great
food, nice people. We have explored much and yet I feel like we've
barely scratched the surface. We have tried to check off some of the
major sites, but the tourists sites, while totally fascinating, also
come with lots other tourists - both Chinese and non-Chinese - and the
locals who wish to sell them stuff - ricksaw ride, anyone?

Similar to other large cities we have visited, there is something
about Beijing that made me feel almost immediately comfortable. It is
a real, vibrant city in every way that Ulaanbaatar was not. Our
favorite has been wandering the warrens of hutongs (back alleys that
often ignore the grid). These have also generally had the best food.
The hole-in-the-wall spots have delivered. My favorite thus far has
been a place that specialized in cold sesame noodles. The best I've
had by far. The sauce was a perfect balance of creamy and slightly
sour. The noodles had a perfect bite to them.

I would also highly recommend the 798 Art Zone. The city has set off
a large number blocks where visual artists have their studios along
side (what seems like) hundreds of galleries. There is some great
talent here and it's a very cool area. We spent four hours at 798,
and we may try to return before we leave Beijing.

The one thing that I have found consistently strange here is range of
prices. We have eaten many meals in certain parts of the city that
are equal price to single beer or cocktail in others. Not like one
plate costs as much one drink, three dishes plus bottles of water
equal to a single cocktail. To be fair the latter places cater to a
Western and wealthy Chinese crowd, but it's still sticker shock.
Depending on where you stay here and where you eat here, Beijing is
either very, very affordable coming from the US or it completely
comparably priced.

We're off the the Great Wall tomorrow and then back in Beijing for
another week before heading to Shenyang. I'll try to get out another
post soon.

Mongolia

I've never been somewhere with so few rules.  You can go anywhere and pitch a tent.  When there are ruins dating back to the 8th Century there is no guard, there is no fee.  You just park and walk up.

It is a strange and wonderful experience coming from the land of procedures and guidelines.  This place is truly untouched, but it will not remain so for much longer.  You can feel the pull towards a more contemporary life.  It's in the solar panels and satellite dishes connected to the gers (traditional nomadic dwellings).  It's in the brand name clothing on the young people, and the Ke$ha videos on MTV Asia playing in remote tourist camps.

The best of Mongolia is in it's landscape.  It is varied and open and has a complete lack of fences.  We climbed 500 meter sand dunes and saw impressive red rock cliffs that resembled a mini-Grand Canyon.  We sat on the shores of a lake that in United States most certainly would have been surrounded by beautiful private homes.  Here there were a few tourist camps and tent campers. We walked through a gorge that would have been as at home in Scotland as Mongolia.

The openness is hard to describe.  At first it felt isolating.  The level of disconnection really got to me the first couple of days, but once that passed I came to embrace how far we were from anything.  Mongolia has pockets of modernity, but they are hard won.  This does not seem like an easy place to live.

Not all is positive here, and not all parts of our last two weeks were perfect.  Our tour company left much to be desired, and at one point we found our van hopeless stuck in the mud in the middle of the desert.  Even with the problems, I am so glad we came here.  As we drove along yesterday past endless piles of gravel that will soon pave many of the roads, I was especially glad that we saw it this way.

Right now though, I'm glad to be back in Ulaanbaatar.  Really not a nice place, but a nice place to return to.  We are showered and we are tired.  More reports on Mongolia to come.