The Morning Market

The Morning Market is noisy, lively, crowded and brimming with an amazing array of colours and smells.

Before the coming of the Carrefour hypermarket franchise, this is where Beijing went to buy it's groceries. You'll rarely see a foreigner here, but every morning till 12:30 it's packed with people buying their fish, eggplants, steamed buns, toilet paper, you-name-it here.

shopping tips: haggling a *bit* for prices is the norm (it's already cheaper and often better quality than at the supermarket). To that purpose dressing down seems to help; this is one place women leave their LV and Prada (real or fake) behind.

In the video below - taken just this morning - you see a row of vendors hawking various cooked foods like jian bing and shao bing (pancakes and omelettes) fried on a large skillet, dou hua (soft tofu) and other treats. After that, we go to the main area of the market, where most of the floorspace is taken up by vegetable sellers.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-595771705826868021&hl=en