When we got off the plane in Beijing, we called a local couchsurfing buddy, Xiaosu, who invited us for dinner and sleeping arrangements.
On the last day in Beijing, after visiting the forbidden city, two nicely dressed and Chinese tourist looking gentlemen politely greeted us. “Hui”, a 40 year old stomach surgeon and “andy”, approximately 25 years of age, studying to become a doctor. The two were from shanghai, but visiting beijing for a medical conference. Their English was quite well, and we walked with them around tianamen square and some old streets nearby. Outside a tea store, hui asked us if we wanted to join them for a cup of tea.
A Chinese girl served us all many different tea samples, while telling stories about how the teas affect the bodyparts. She tried to sell us some, but the prices were rediculous in china scale, about 40 dollars for the cheapest pack of tea. We declined but were presented with a bill of 200 dollars to split with our new friends for just the samples. At this point we asked for IDs from hui and buddy. But unfortunately they had left it at the hotel. Odd, because the Chinese must carry IDs at all times when outside.
We left rightaway without paying anything. Hui and andy had spent about an hour and a half on us, and we had a lot of different free tea.
Their stories were very convincing and we are a bit unsatisfied that we couldnt prove any inconsistencies in them, although we tried. We decided to go back to the place we were picked up and attempt to find some new scammers to play with.
No matter how much we tried to look like fresh blue eyed tourists, we weren’t successful.
We spent 3 days in Beijing before flying to shanghai (we had originally planned to take the train, but a Chinese national holiday came in the way).
