August 16 (Day 14):

Flight to Beijing: We left Lanzhou early in the morning to fly back to Beijing. The drive is about one hour. Lanzhou airport like many other airports is a sprawling complex and relatively new. Our local guides, John and Karen were kind enough to drove us to airport and bid us farewell. 

Friday Prayers : Br. Yusuf Mah welcomed us back to Beijing and took us straight to Xiyuan Hotel for getting ready for our last Friday prayers in China. At this mosque, we ran into a group of Muslims from various Muslim countries for some technical training in China. After exchanging pleasantries with them and with the local Muslims, we headed the infamous Silk Street!

Last Dinner in China: We returned to the most famous Muslim Halal Restaurant in Beijing and enjoyed ourselves to the hilt, as this was our last Chinese dinner. On behalf of IslamiCity, Shakeel formally thanked everyone for the opportunity and thanked Allah that all went well during the last two weeks in China. 

We returned back to Xiyuan Hotel and convened in the Muslim Halal Restaurant for a final group picture session. This lasted for a good half hour. After the group picture, some of us relaxed in the cafe for ice cream and coffee before heading to the rooms.

Shopping at Silk Street: This is one of the most popular and infamous shopping areas. Everything that is sold here is known as "real imitation". You think of a major brand name and look around and chances are that you will find it. Watches, Bags, Clothes galore everywhere. One's bargaining skills are best put to test in this market.

The silk market is barely a 10 to 12 feet wide lane with shops on both sides and it stretches a good few hundred feet. Shop owners literally grab the prospects by hand to offer their wares. One of the ways vendors keep their prospects to their shop is that they hand over the calculator in their hand while bargaining. And when the customer hands back the calculator, they refuse to take back their own calculator. This back-and-forth love affair between the customer and the vendor is a fun exercise.

If you have succeeded in bringing down the price from $100 to $15, you have really not succeeded yet. We have witnessed people buying things for almost nothing. It is certainly amazing to see how the vendors make money and how one could bargain down the price to 800%. Both the shoppers and vendors amazed me. 

Everyone returned after a four hour shopping spree with many bags & some in fact shopped suitcases to fit in their shopping of Silk Street.