My Adventures in Beijing & Beyond: Good Things Come from Xinjiang.

Last Saturday a coworker, whose dad is a chef, cooked us this amazing spread of traditional Beijing and Sichuan dishes while we waited (for 3.5 hours!) and played Mafia. I can't get over how awesome everyone here seems to be at cooking:

The Feast

Marinated meatballs over napa cabbage

We went to dinner at Hatsune, an expensive and mediocre Japanese restaurant in Chaoyang, where we ordered a full 1.8 L of cold sake (plus a couple bottles of warm sake) and Armin and Aki proceeded to finish the whole thing. Amazing. Sandy, Joe and I helped a bit (a tiny bit).

"The Butterfly Roll":
Snow crab and tempura shrimp inside, shrimp, unagi and avocado on top.

We then headed to Bar Blu in Sanlitun, but it was "closed for reasons we cannot control (we hope to reopen in the near future)." Very cryptic.

So at that moment Aki sees a guy he recognizes. Turns out he's part of this band called the Xinjiang Boys who play flamenco, Gypsy Kings covers, and traditional Uigher music with a twist. They were heading to a bar called Cheers (again, packed to the gills with foreigners, but quite a few locals too) to perform. I'd actually heard about these guys before I came to Beijing - a friend of a friend was a big fan and probably their first groupie. Turns out they they were AMAZING. The lead guitarist was especially talented, with such masterful control of his classical guitar that I wanted to weep. Before I ruined my camera I managed to capture a few short clips:

Unfortunately they don't have a website, nor do they even have a recorded CD. I am seriously considering, if I can find a small recording studio here for relatively cheap, just paying for them to get some of their stuff recorded so I can take their wonderful music home with me to the States - it would be the best souvenir ever.

Anyway, so now the Xinjiang Boys, along with Chinese-Muslim architecture, lamb skewers and hand-pulled noodles, rank among the Many Wonderful Things That Come From Xinjiang Province.

Sunday I went with a coworker friend to 798 Art District, this gigantic area filled with cutting-edge (and sometimes insipid) galleries, cafes, and bizarro sculptures. Contemporary artists in China seem to have quite the obsession with the Cultural Revolution, Communism, and the Cult of Mao. I guess I can't blame them, given the circumstances. Here's some pics we snapped with my friend's camera: