Panjiayuan Market

Sometimes called the Dirt Market, is known as an antique market but it is really hard to tell if things are old or just have dirt rubbed on them.  You can find broken bits of pottery and things that look old, you must know what is what.  Most of the stuff is however, new and sold as new.  We have been to this market two times now.  The three of us went the first week Olivia and I were in China......I didn't know enough then to bring the camera on a shopping trip....now I do, so many things to catch the eye and we know a picture is worth a thousand words.  It was raining and yucky that day and we were still jet lagged, pictures were not uppermost on my mind.   These pictures are from Mike and I going to the market last weekend.

This market is amazing in sheer volume, booth after booth selling similar if not identical items and row after row.  Some were in permanent structures like the store with the turquoise, others were on cloths spread on the ground under umbrellas and everything in between.

These are shots from a store that sold turquoise, tons of turquoise beads.

I don't know if these bags are full of real stone or fake.  Not being the expert it is hard to be sure and I didn't handle any of it.

Beads, beads, beads.  Some day I will go back and actually touch and perhaps buy!

This shop is all of about 15 by 15 feet and that may be too big.  Bags upon bags.

Strung beads as well.  I didn't look closely because the shop was crowded......remember...very small.  Four people makes a crowd.

A further back shot of the strung beads and the people that were looking at the beads in the glass case...I was the sixth person in.










It was almost overwhelming seeing all these beads in one place.  I imagine there is an actual bead market somewhere but I have not heard of it yet.
I have to post this excursion in several separate posts because it takes a long time to download pictures and when I loose my VPN connection in the middle of downloading that ends up being a great deal of wasted time.  Ask me how I know this:)

Love, fondly, sincerely,
zaijian,
Ramona