Shopping for Jade and Pearls in Beijing (August 17th and 18th, 2018)

One of the things that our tour company is very good about is giving people time to shop and pointing them in the right direction for quality purchases, so while we were in Beijing we got to tour both a jade factory and a pearl shop.

The first thing they do at a jade shop is look at the color of the jade.  The color of the jade will determine what it is turned into.



Then they can start working on the jade to turn it into a masterpiece.  

In the jade factory, we were shown how the jade is cut and shaped.  A family secret passed down through generations, so if you want to get into the business but it's not in your family, you are going to have to marry into it. 😕

After a quick overview, we were given time to shop, or just browse.  Steve and I are more the browser types, so I took some fun pictures for you.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the jade jewelry, including the solid jade bangles.

And in the jade shop, they just happened to have a coffee bar with coupons for a free latte for Gate-1 customers!

The other shopping we had a chance to do before we left Beijing was pearls.  The shop we went to had everything from inexpensive and odd shaped pearls cultured pearls, to the finest yellow salt water pearls.  Here is some of what we saw.

I had no idea there were so many colors colors of jade, or so many shapes and colors of pearls.  Shopping in Beijing was a fun and educational experience!