Wangfujing St. is one of Beijing’s main shopping areas and today’s assignment had us deep in the heart of it at the Wangfujing Gongmei Emporium.
It’s five stories tall and filled with any thing you can imagine. The bottom floor is currently home to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Flagship store. It was a mad house. See all those people on the street? That’s what it was like inside.
Shopping in the Emporium is a little different than stores in the US. When you find what you want to buy, you tell an employee near by. They write you a receipt. Then you go to a register, pay, then go back to the sales floor to grab your item… all while fighting the crowd. Needless to say we didn’t do too much shopping.
Nestled away in one part of the second floor was the best part… local aritsans making goods for sale right there in front of you. Just quietly, delicately, creating works of art before our very eyes.
