First things first... landing at Beijing Capital Airport, going through immigration, customs, getting my bags, and hailing a cab all went mercifully smoothly. I stuck my head out the window and felt my nose prickle at the sort of smoky mugginess I've come to associate with Asia, but the road into town was lined with rather grand-looking silvery-green trees.
The executive suite where they're putting me up is, by any interpretation, totally sweet. Flat-screen TVs (yes, plural), delightfully firm mattress, stocked kitchen, plus a pool and gym downstairs, and breakfast served every morning (downstairs, not in my room!).
Saturday evening I met up with other expat coworkers (one from Dublin, another from London) and went to find food at Nanluoguxiang, which is apparently an up-and-coming neighborhood close to the over-commercialized tourist haven known as Hohei. It looked almost exactly like St Mark's Place in NYC, except a bit grimier. Quite a few foreigners loping around, but nothing was too crowded or obnoxious-looking. We settled on a bustling little establishment that had pictures and English translations on the menu. We ordered:
- Cucumber spears smothered in a garlicky sauce
- Boiled dumplings, pretty standard
- Pan-fried dumplings, same as above except fried and thus more delicious
- "Delicious chicken" - cold boiled chicken swimming in a pool of chili oil and some pickled things, topped with sesame seeds and green onions
- Stir-fried rabbit with chilis - this dish probably killed off a fifth of my oral membranes, it was so ridiculously spicy. mouth. on. fire.
Stir-fried Rabbit and Chilis
"Delicious Chicken"Sunday we met up with my college friend who has been living in Beijing for a year and he took us to Pearl Market, which is pretty much an indoors version of Canal Street in New York, with stalls upon stalls hawking everything from fake purses to tiny USB drives holding 64 GB (!) of memory.
I got my first lesson in the fine art of bargaining. It's a whole ritualistic dance here, where you show a bit of interest, and the shopkeeper latches onto you, and you either walk away or ask, "How much?" and the bargaining begins. The first number they give you is ludicrously high (say, USD$100 for a backpack). You are supposed to counter with an offer 1/8, or even less, of what they said. They will scream bloody murder and say "Noooooooooo," as Russell Peters would say, the longest "no" you ever heard in your life. Eventually you settle for a price both parties can live with, somewhere around 1/6 or 1/5 the original price, but if you are adamant and/or employ the Walkaway Technique (as in, "100 other stalls in this market sell the exact same thing, I will go to someone else!"), you can usually wind up paying much less.
It was stressful, man. I bought two fake Coach wallets and a purse for about USD$46, and I think I paid too much.
We grabbed a snack at Monet Cafe, which looked like a tourist trap but had some pretty tasty bakery items, then crossed the street to the Temple of Heaven Park. The park was huge and full of Chinese families, old people playing Chinese poker, street performers, and women dressed up in some rather loud, unnatural-looking minority costumes. The Temple itself was large and impressive, painted in rather ornate blues, greens, and metallic golds. Highlights:
- Old people playing what my coworker described as "Tai chi ping pong."
- Little kids scrambling up to the Echo Wall and yelling loudly at one another to see if the sound would travel the way they say
- Standing at the center of the universe at the top of the great stone altar.
- Water calligraphy on the southern walkway:
- Delicate Ming architecture such as this:
Afterwards we went to Worker's Stadium and took pictures of the very patriotic statue there:
Then we went across the street to a Xinjiang Muslim Restaurant, where we had:- Stir-fried morsels of lamb and bread
- Lamb skewers
- Hand-pulled noodles in a tomato-y, bell peppery sauce
- Eggplant with some kind of sweet ground-beef gravy smothered on top
- Snow pea shoots stir-fried quite simply and deliciously
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