Unkie Tom, this one’s for you

Well, it is the New Year, and my sister, Sandy, is here in Beijing visiting with me. She’ll be here until the 6th of January. She’s taking a nap at the moment – she hasn’t fully adjusted to the time difference and so we are taking it easy today.

She arrived on Saturday night, and after an uneventful ride from the airport, we settled in and took care of the most important thing – my Christmas presents. (We also caught up on the activities of everyone and everything in Holland and the US in general.)

On Sunday we went to church, and afterwards met with Jared and his cousin, Susannah (she was visiting him over Christmas.) We went to Lido to buy DVDs and for lunch, and eventually made our way to Silk Alley for Sandy’s first taste of Chinese bartering. Now, I can’t say what we purchased – it might have been presents, it might not have been. All you need to know is that we haggled out excellent prices for everything that we bought. Later that night we went to Mike and Christie Brasser’s for dinner and games.

Early Monday morning Sandy and I met Susannah (Jared had to work and asked if Susannah could accompany us on Monday and Tuesday.) and we started our whirlwind tour of Beijing. We started out at the Forbidden City – we went through it at an incredible pace (with Roger Moore as our guide – he narrates the audio tour) and after that we headed to Jingshan park – it is a park directly to the north of the Forbidden City that has a big hill in the middle. The hill was made from the dirt, rocks and debris that were removed to create the moats around the Forbidden City; it also gives a very picturesque view over Tiananmen Square and the F.C.

At this point we went to lunch with Christie - we had an authentic Chinese lunch of baozi and jiaozi (steamed dumplings and filled steamed buns.) After lunch we went to Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) and spent a few hours wandering around the park – it’s gigantic, to say the least. After we had seen most of the sights – the echo wall, the processional bridge, etc. – we went to Hongqiao Market. This market is known for its pearls, but it has everything under the sun.

Once we had finished shopping (bartering, really) we met up with Jared for dinner. After a very random dinner (we had eel, fruit salad, celery and lily root, and sizzling rice) we went to see an acrobatics show. The show was excellent – contortionists, unicycles, and the Leaf-Men (guys should not wear leotards, especially ones with strategically-placed leaves.) It was impressive and disgusting – people should not bend those ways or have such a great sense of balance.

After that, we went our separate ways. On Tuesday we started later – at 9 am – and began by heading to Tiananmen Square to view Mao’s body (we’d missed it on Monday, and it’s one of those things that you have to see if you’re in Beijing.) I didn’t get to see Mao, since we all had bags, which aren’t allowed in the mausoleum and someone had to guard/hold the bags. After they had seen the Cat – as Mao was known – we headed to the Lama temple. It’s the largest Buddhist temple in Beijing, and there are a whole lotta Buddhas in the temple. There is even a 18m tall giant Buddha in the very back of the temple. It was interesting, but not too terribly interesting – there were only a few signs in English.

After lunch we headed to the Summer Palace. We took a bus, and it took a long time to get there. Once we arrived, we moseyed down the Long Corridor – a covered walkway that is over a mile long, is covered with painted scenes, and runs the length of the lake. We ended up at the Marble Boat and then headed around the backside of the mountain and scaled the rocks up to the top of the palace. Scale probably isn’t the right word, since there were “steps” carved into the rocks, but it was steep and slippery. After we finished there, we went back to Jared’s apartment to wait – he was at work and we were tired. When he arrived he was bleeding – he’d fallen off his bike and scraped his hands and knees. Once we got him patched up, we headed out to a Mongolian hotpot restaurant. Mongolian hotpot is a very involved means of eating – you personally stew meat, vegetables and noodles in pot that is on your table. Sandy and Susannah didn’t seem to terribly enthralled with this, but they survived.

After dinner we went to Houhai – a bar area in Beijing that is built around Houhai lake – and cruised the scene. We ended up in a club listening to DJ Leaf do his mix. A live band came on after a while, and Jared requested a song. When the band got around to playing the song, they invited Jared onto the stage to sing with them. He did. The club had a deal going with their “specialty” drink, which tasted they way rubbing alcohol smells. So we each had one, and that was more than enough.

Wednesday was spent at Fuchengmen Market, a large market that has everything anyone could ever want (well…) Sandy bought a sweet blanket – heavy, warm and fleecy-good. I have one, and Sandy had latched onto mine. So I made sure that she acquired one of her own. We also bought quite a few presents, since Fuchengmen is THE place for good presents.

We went out to a Korean barbeque joint for dinner – Sandy, Mike (it was his going away party – he left on Friday), Mel, two of Mel’s friends from Shanghai, and yours truly. Korean barbeque is some of the best food on Earth – the meat and veggies are cooked over coals directly in front of you – tasty-good. After dinner we went to Sanlitun (a different bar street – the main one, in fact) and met up with Jared and Grace (one of Jared’s friends.) We spent New Year’s Eve in Durty Nellie’s Irish Pub listening to a Filipino band play covers of Pink Floyd and U2. Eventually the bartenders threw handfuls and handfuls of glow sticks to the throng. There was a countdown to midnight (though I’m pretty sure that it happened fifteen minutes after midnight, I might be wrong, but I doubt it.) We headed back to campus after one, and had to climb the stairs (fourteen flights – the elevator shuts down at midnight.)

Thursday we slept in and eventually ambled down to Wangfujing (the main shopping street in Beijing) and window-shopped for awhile. We stopped in at the chopstick shop and the foreign language bookstore and bought a few sets of chopsticks and reading material. After Wangfujing we headed down to the Friendship Store to see the real deals – real jade and pearls and antiques. It was enlightening. That night we went to dinner at Ashtray – a local eatery of decent edibles. Sandy was impressed with my ability to order and express myself in Chinese (well, not really – ask her for details.) After dinner we went back the apartment, watched a DVD, and went to sleep.

Now, I know that I promised more on Christmas, and I will – next time. I promise.