Hi All,
I am leaving for China in 6 days!
I'll be in Beijing and Xi'an.
Any suggestions for souvenirs?

We'll also be shopping at Yasiu Market.

Thanks in advance!

We don't usually buy a lot souvenirs but China was the exception. Many people on the tour had to buy an extra suitcase in Beijing. My favorite souvenir was a Terra Cotta warrior from Xi'an. You can get them in about any size you want. We bought one about two feet tall. Note, they were much cheaper in the market just outside the official tourist site.

Joed Did you ship it home or how did you manage to get it home? What was it made out of?

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Joed Did you ship it home or how did you manage to get it home? What was it made out of?

I brought it home as carry-on. I brought an extra carry on bag just for it. It is quite large, but the larger ones have a detachable head which makes them a little easier to transport. In hindsight I probably should have bought an extra head so that I could change it from time to time. I believe it is made of some form of clay and was baked in a "kilm".

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Originally posted by Firefly2005:
I'll be in Beijing and Xi'an.
Any suggestions for souvenirs?

There are plenty of places to buy souvenirs in China, most are expensive, some cheap.

It seems that the Chinese Hawkers can see the word "Tourist" that is tattooed across your forehead, because the prices are exceptionlly high when you go to buy anything. When we were in China 18 months ago, I looked in the mirror for about 10 minutes before we went out shopping and again when we came home but could not see it, but they sure could !!

It seemed that the most expensive places were the government operated tourist places.

quote:

It seems that the Chinese Hawkers can see the word "Tourist" that is tattooed across your forehead, because the prices are exceptionlly high when you go to buy anything.

We found that prices were relatively high if you bought things where the TD took you but "very inexpensive" if you took off on your own. On one occassion we took off on our own and my wife bought a beautiful set of 4 chinese dolls in a boxed case. The same dolls were being sold individually on the cruise ship for more than she paid for the boxed set. The terra cotta warrior that I bought was much more expensive in the store that our TD brought us but we skipped out on the tour for a few minutes and bought it at the nearby outdoor market. I doubt that I would have bought it at the tour store as it was much too expensive.