beijing

preface

this was such a unique and fun experience, life changing and profound!! it was pretty much beyond description but here goes: at times, beijing was culturally overwhelming -- not so much because its culture is foreign, but because it’s SO different from american culture and yet oddly at times, it was familiar to me in an unusual way.

a little background first: i have been in almost every state in the union, spending significant time in a lot of them -- living, hiking, camping, seeing rock shows of course, and just cruising. i’ve visited europe once (munich, with a quick stint in brussels) and have been in both canada & mexico. traveling to special and unique places, especially with close friends, and for live music is one of the greatest pleasures in my life!!!! so, in march 05 the chance to visit beijing materialized right before my eyes. a great friend of mine teaches at the international montessori school there and had a week off – how could i say “no?”

as it got close to my departure date, i got more excited and nervous than i have for any trip i'd embarked on before.

i chose a flight (out of austin) with two stops (m/sp & tokyo) versus one (cali somewhere) -- it is a bit cheaper and easier overall IMHO (the longest single flight time was 12 hours versus 17 by way of cali). note: the tokyo airport (narita) sucks but the m/sp airport is very nice.

beijing: day one (night really) – trip pictures here click

mr. rob-e-rob, being the incredible host that he is, offered a prompt and warm greeting at pek (the beijing capital airport). we were off in a nice taxi for some good beer (imported) and pizza (great). we caught up and made a plan for the week.

day 1: for real-3/28

we went to tiananmen square (currently the worlds largest square -- curb to curb at 440,000 square meters), the wang chung (everybody have fun tonight) pavilion, the forbidden city (the imperial palace for the ming and qing dynasties, built in the early 1400’s and served 24 emperors, the last one in 1912), beihai park, houhai park, jing sung park, and a killer rickshaw ride with a great rider (guide). he took us to traditional hutongs (quad style housing -- very feng shui). we sat with jimmy jing and had tea at his family’s bed & breakfast (hutong visiting in case you’re interested).

for lunch we went to a hip sandwich/coffee joint called kosmos. we ordered simple, harmless sandwiches and hip smoothies, and sat on the third floor (the roof).

that evening, we went to xiao wang's, a 4 story restaurant (no roof-top seating here) where we had some cold tsingtao beer, spicy green beans and pork, sweet & sour cucumbers, and the classic beijing dish, peking duck which was amazing!! oh, and cheap too.

we then went for a full body massage (1 hour), totally on the up and up – not the happy ending kind. :) 135 RMB before rob's discount (around $16 but just over $11 with his membership card) and this place is very upscale with private rooms and complimentary drinks and snacks. massages can be had for 40 RMB -- $5.50 in beijing at places like the big markets and elsewhere but from what i hear, nowhere near as nice, certainly not as private and classy.

day 2: 3/29

in my early morning stupor, i stupidly “formatted” my camera’s sd card and lost all of my first days pictures. i recovered some but no one will ever see me in full emperor regalia.

oh yes, the great wall! we were driven to a less traveled part of the wall -- we hiked it from jing sheng ling to simatai, a 4 hour, one-way trek though 17 of the towers. just seeing it instantly awes and humbles you beyond description (it is over 4000 miles long and over 2000 years old). there are many locals who try/want to serve as your guide so they can sell post-cards when they are done with their portion of the wall. the two that followed us were hilarious (i nick-named them thelma and louise) but turned around at the half-way mark as if there seemed to be a zoning etiquette on the wall. we ended up buying an over-priced deck of post-cards from them showing very pretty stretches of the wall but not the ones we hiked.

look at the pictures using the link above -- it was a rough hike. there is some controversy over the wall being built by slaves and such but regardless of whom it was built by and under what conditions, given its magnitude (the only man-made structure visible from space) where it was built, and the era, it is truly a marvel regardless of the wrongs that occured.

for dinner we went to a very small, local joint named the red door. it was soooo good -- spicy eggplant, fried haystack potatoes mixed with cilantro and small chile peppers, and hot iron skillet beef. it was great -- and, again, cheap – a great hole-in-the-wall. i would guess it was sichuan or hunan in style. i asked rob the foreigner dumb foodie question ”is this chinese eggplant?” he shot me that look which i completely understood – of course it was, it's from china.

after our long hike and great meal, we went to the rob's favorite DVD store where all DVDs are 10 quai ($1.20) to buy including films that are still in u.s. theatres – very nice but be careful on your way home, going through customs. after perusing and buying DVDs, it was back to the massage place, this time for a foot massage which is better i think (again, see me passed out at the end of the pictures) -- it is 90 minutes long, feet, legs, back, shoulders, and neck for the same price as the full body massage!!

day 3: 3/30

rob had a tai chi lesson and his ayi (pronounced “i e” and meaning “auntie” in mandarin) came -- the ayi cleans his rather big apartment, does the laundry, and cooks a meal 3 times a week for 800 quai ($100) a month! we got ready and went to the school where rob works. rob took care of a few things and we had korean bbq for lunch with annie (the jack of all trades at the school), rob's sister helen (the school's librarian) and helen’s husband bruce.

korean bbq ROCKS -- we did "hot-box" where you get a rectangular box on the table with hot coals in it and a grilling grate on it (sort of like a hibachi). everything ordered comes raw (marinated beef, chicken, squid, potatoes, and sweet potatoes are what we had) except rice, appetizers, and such, and you grill it yourself -- it forces you to eat slowly and it was delicious and fun and with great company!

after lunch we took the subway to the lama temple and the confucius temple. the lama temple is rob's favorite spiritual place and houses the largest buddha in the world: 18 meters high (above ground) and 18 meters underground, carved out of one piece of white sandal wood – breathtaking!! most of the lama temple was built around the mid 1740’s.

a lot of people pray and offer incense but from what i am told, in order to have your prayers answered, you need to come back at a different time and pray again. they are also very protective of the temple area – no pictures were allowed inside any building. the walk to the temple, street side, gave me on of my favorite pictures – the b & w of a street and nifty trees (you’ll pick it out).

when we returned home, rob's ayi had made the most incredible dumplings (jiaozi) from scratch.

after eating all of the jiaozi and watching some dave chapelle show and sealab 2021, we went to the wanfujing commercial area (very metropolitan – bright lights, big city) where, among other things is donghuamen night food market which has the craziest food: 100 yards or so of scorpion, beetle, silkworm, sheep testicles, snake, sea lion, goat guts (soup) – mostly on skewers and cooked to order – WOW!! I cautiously chose a coconut (I was full) with a white exterior for 5 quai (60 cents). When ordered, the attendant takes a phillips head screwdriver and punctures a hole in the coconut, puts a straw in it and gives it to you – that is it. i let myself down to some extent, not pulling off the anthony bordain’s “a cooks tour.”

speaking of food, most of beijing’s cuisine comes from different regions, i.e. beijing doesn’t have a particular style of food except by being a northern city, its food is hearty and substantial (for instance, instead of rice, you tend to see dumplings and noodles) and of course peking duck was invented there (beijing used to be peking). so there are various types of asian cuisines in beijing from cantonese (the saying goes “they eat anything on land but cars, anything in the sea but boats, etc.”) to sichuan and hunan which tend to be spicy dishes, utilizing a lot of peppers, to a significant amount of muslim cuisine. it is all very different than american chinese food, even in the larger american asian communities like san francisco, boston, and new york.

day 4: 3/31

getting a late start, i wanted to see the markets so we went to the pearl market (one of many which are well known). being in the markets is where i saw capitalism at its best – what a interesting experience, reminding me that in the u.s., more than we think, so many products and services, are actually negotiable. these markets are huge and don’t just sell items based on their names (pearls, silk, etc) but everything one can imagine from clothes to electronics, to the personally popular fake rolex watches (in lieu of the real article of course). these two examples though are in fact heavily weighted with items based on their names.

here is a great site on the bargaining process: http://talesmag.com/tales/road/bargaining_in_beijing.shtml
it is fun, a game actually, and most of the merchants speak english – it is like gambling in vegas – you have to and do learn quickly.

this evening, rob had something very special planned – dinner at probably the neatest and slickest restaurants i have seen in my life, the green t. house. it was on a side street, exposing a huge single white door with the name in raised white letters (in both mandarin and english). it was rob, patricia (rob’s friend) and me. you ring a doorbell and this huge door opens outward. we were escorted into an foyer (so to speak) surrounded by red velour curtains. we were escorted immediately to the modern white lacquer table reserved for us. there was a leaf with rob’s name (mr. rob) written in silver marker nestled in the candle holder.

i have never seen menus like this in the states. the regular dinner menu was set up in “acts” like a play but without any ordering rules and presented in an accordion style binding reminiscent of more ancient times. The entire wine list, while rather small was very solid, not only from the selection (everything from decent cali wines to prestigious super tuscans and even penfolds la grange) but the design. good wine in china is no cheaper than in the states but older vintages are more readily available. the wine list was printed on a very large paper-board material at something like a 35 degree angle and each category had an very cool and eclectic category title as if jerry ried added the verbiage.

the entire place was a mixture of the milk bar in a clockwork orange and something so honestly chinese chic (whatever that is). there were very random colored disco tec lights, great art, a fireplace, and a gift shop, a retro lounge, etc.

yes, the food was well worth it too: we shared mystic beef rolls, a crazy wild mushroom dish, a stuffed eggplant dish and…….i don’t remember the fourth but definitely lamb of some sort. it was old mod, new china, hip all around, great food, well presented, etc. rob was kind enough to pick up the tab (thanks rob). they broke a lot of traditional restaurant rules and it worked which is what made it so pleasurable – it was FUN.

the three of us chose to have dessert and a cool european type dessert café, similar to dolce vita in austin for those who know. afterwards, patricia went home, rob and i went to bar bleu, a very slick bar close by. it was neon-heavy yet very laid back. we sat on a couch, proceeded to get drunk and reminisce about old times. we had a lot to talk about, and had a lot of belly laughs doing it.

we stumbled home, stayed up for a bit and then i hit my wall.

day 5: 4/1 (april fools)

today, we were making up for some lost time including rectifying the smooth moves like my day 2 picture loss. we looked far and wide for an atm that worked so i could get some more $. we ended up in some very, very classy and upscale hotels during our mission. we went back to the forbidden city so i could recapture some pictures but before that we stopped at the “kiosk.” now, while it is a kiosk of sorts, it is actually called the kiosk. we had a great simple lunch and the gentleman who helped us really solidified the overall genuine hospitality, care, and sincerity i experienced throughout my trip.

still on the hunt for one unique item for larry-bob, we went to the silk market. right before my arrival, the silk market had always been outside but it just moved into a new indoor facility. so, in addition to finding exactly what i had been looking for all week, i stumbled upon another rolex for a stupid good deal ($14) and rob found some very cool coca-cola rolexes. for the most part, the clothes there are crap (poorly made) unless you have something custom done – then it is worth it – silk, cashmere, etc.

we went to an okay japanese style restaurant for dinner, sort of like benny hana, where they cook infront of you. it was mediocre at best but cheap for the amount of food. we made one final stop at the now infamous dvd shop and rob in his sneaky yet enjoyable ways, made a reservation for one last foot massage for all three of us. this is the one where he takes my camera and shoots me asleep. i didn’t realize it until i got back to austin – sneaky devil! we said preliminary good-byes that night – i had a high-end driver taking me to the airport early in the morning. much to my surprise and enjoyment, both rob and patricia got up, patricia to say good-bye and rob rode with me to the airport. this meant and still means a ton to me – i hated leaving but having some quiet one-on-one time book ending the visit was great – thanks rob!!!

this pretty much concludes the overview of a week in beijing. i brought back a chinese coke (they are all better than ours – made with sugar), tried to exchange the peoples’ republic of china currency in japan and they won’t exchange most asian money – that sucks since there aren’t any atms there either – oh well.

if you get the chance, GO – period! even a short visit like i had changed the way i look at the world profoundly.