One week and I'm developing love handles.

This is gross. Tomorrow morning I'm going to get up early and go swimming or something.

Today, slept in until 11:30am, then met up with the dudes to go to lunch. We just walked to the Zhongguancun Shopping Plaza and ate at Ajisen ramen shop, which I've had in San Gabriel in California. Except here, a solid fried udon could be had for 25 yuan ($3.25):

Plus, we could splurge on extras like marinated cucumbers and fresh kiwi juice:

Or gyoza:

And Japanese fried chicken. Yum.

Afterwards we headed to Silk Alley Market, which is also like Canal Street, except indoors and more selection. We spend the entire afternoon there. I was aiming to buy a lighter weight autumn jacket, but instead I got roped into buying a dress for too much--200 Yuan ($28). But I guess I got a decent price for a pair of hiking boots and Pumas (450 Yuan for both--$60). Hmm now that I do the math, it seems I got ripped off. And then some underwear, 6 pairs for 60 Yuan. Good lord, I am terrible at bargaining! I think I need to lay off on the shopping. Or get better at simple arithmatic. * sigh * I am much better at eating.

Afterwards we went to the Sanlitun area and sought out this chilled out pizza joint called The Tree. It was expat central, man. I think I saw one group of locals. But no matter, I enjoyed the thin-crust cheese, pepperoni and roma chicken pizzas we got:

And just outside was a very cheerful-looking poster encouraging tourism to the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. Oh the irony.

Down the street was a very cool DVD shop (legal? bootleg? who knows?) where I scored:

• Before Sunset (10 Yuan - $1.33)
• Becoming Jane (10 Yuan)
  
• The Science of Sleep (15 Yuan)
  
• The Namesake (15 Yuan)
  
• A cd album called Just Me by Tiffany--yes, of "I think We're Alone Now" fame. Several years ago she had released a comeback album that I really liked, where the music was now moody almost like Sarah Maclachlan. So I figured, what the heck, for 20 Yuan it was worth a listen.
• The Revenge Trilogy by Chang-Wook Park. There was a very beautiful, elegant boxed set for 60 Yuan, and I was on the fence about it, until I asked if it had English subtitles. When I discovered it didn't, I was sorely disappointed. But I ended up getting all three films boxed separately for 10-15 Yuan each.
• Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
• Oldboy (hands down the most intensely screwed up movie I have ever seen in my life. You think you're inured to violence and then this just takes it to a whole new level. Beyond violence of astounding creativity, it has enough craziness going on thematically that it leaves you feeling pretty tainted in spirit. But, of course, the director's cinematic virtuosity is so impressive that it leaves you mulling over it for days afterwards.)
• Lady Vengeance

Liked the stage-y lighting inside The Tree.

My lungs, they hurt. My head, it aches.

NOTICE: The gov't has managed to find and disable Gladder, the only way we foreigners were able to scale the Great Firewall, so I can no longer access my blog even though I can keep posting to it. So if you have comments feel free to e-mail me directly.

I'm not quite sure how anyone survives here long-term. Pollution has settled in at what I assume are normal levels for Beijing, or Gray-jing as Aki calls it, and it's really getting to me. Gone are the breezy, clear blue skies of last weekend. From what I gather, it's all downhill from here.

Tonight, after a full week of Chinese food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I felt the strong need to branch out and get some non-East-Asian food. There was a cool looking Russian place in our Time Out Beijing called Kiev Restaurant, and since it was in the Haidian district we figured it'd be pretty close by. With traffic, it still took about 25 min to get there.

There were some middle-aged Chinese businessmen smoking and shooting the shit outside this neon-emblazoned shack-looking thing, and nowhere did it say "Kiev Restaurant."

But as soon as we stepped in and saw the portraits of Caucasian-looking people lining the staircase, we knew we were in the right place. It was underground, what looked like a German beer hall, and we were ushered to a free table by a very polite Chinese waiter in a Russian embroidered shirt. Soon after we sat down, this band of portly Russian men strutted out in military uniforms and sang some very stirring opera:



I was nervous about getting enough pictures and video, but I shouldn't have worried, because 5 minutes later the whole group came out again in a very boisterous traditional song (gotta love his little dance moves and sailor outfit).



Meanwhile, we ordered up a storm. Starting with Beijing beer and a very good stout. One of our party is painfully meat-and-potatoes, so he ordered plain ole' garlic bread and meat sauce spaghetti (at least the menu had something for everyone). The rest of us got really excited about the more traditional Russian/Ukrainian food. We had:

Grilled Beef Kabobs

Potato latkes topped with mushroom and dill

This delicious lamb stew with carrots, which came topped with this doughy thing that trapped all the heat and steam inside. Don't poke it, Aki!

And then, we couldn't help but giggle at bad Engrish peppered throughout the menu, such as this:

"Cheese Backed Associated Meats"

Necessity is the Mother of Friendship...

...or so I've found in just the past week, in which other expats and myself have latched onto each other, creating this little English-speaking island amidst a sea of Chinese speakers. Coming from Orange County, I never in my life thought I would feel more comfortable around non-Asians than I would around Asians. But here I find myself gravitating towards the foreigners simply because it's easier to express myself with them. As Richard Rodriguez kept harping on in The Hunger of Memory, culture really lives in the language of a people. And I have never felt this more keenly than now.

The other night I met up with another college friend and we went to the Quanjude, the famous Peking Duck restaurant where the duck is specially smoked in fragrant wood chips and an expert chef comes to your table and carves out perfect, delicate little slices of duck skin and duck meat. Our duck was number 44,951 to be served by this particular branch of Quanjude. Here was our chef deftly slicing choice bits of meat from our duck:

And the fixin's included very neatly sliced scallions, cucumber, duck sauce, sugar and garlic, as well as special thin pancakes made of some kind of root vegetable, and lettuce leaves. We also got some vegetable dishes on the side, specialty juice mixes, and the weirdest of all, duck tongue captured in this crystal gel substance. Once you get over the weirdness of eating duck tongue, it was actually pretty good. Next time we have to try the tree frog ovaries.

Lastly, for dessert we had a dish my friend said was a specialty of Beijing, and I can't remember the name but it was __ __ Pingguo, or chunks of apple battered and fried, then covered in this hot, sticky syrup. It came with a bowl of water into which we had to quickly dunk each caramelly piece before the whole thing congealed into a rock-hard mass:

For lunch today, some team members and I went out to a place called Secret Garden Cafe, where the decor was very posh and we had some fiery hot Hunan food (Hunan being the province where Mao Zedong grew up). The most notable dish was fish head in soy sauce and red and green chilis:

After work, we followed the lead of a guy who has been working in this area for a while and went to this food court at the Zhongguancun Plaza and Shopping Mall. There we were greeted by a rich variety of Chinese, Indian, Korean, and other foods I couldn't identify.

Armin got some kind of flavorful, spicy noodle soup with braised pork, pickled mustard greens, and egg (12 Yuan). Joe got some kind of very spicy chicken stir fried with chilis. Aki got a plateful of pork and chive dumplings. And I got this chicken, vegetable and rice stir-fried and served in a lotus leaf for flavor. Mmm good, and so cheap, at only 14 Yuan (less than US $2).

Joe's spicy chicken

Aki's dumplings and my chicken-veggie stir fry

A sampling of Armin's noodle soup

Dirty South + Sweet Pad

As in, southern Chinese food. I need to start remembering to take business cards because these restaurant names are impossible to remember. It was kind of comforting to be eating somewhat more familiar southern food with Joe's industry marketing team at some restaurant across the street from Wahaha in Wudaokou. Pictured above are (clockwise from upper left) napa cabbage and mushrooms, chicken in clay pot, and braised tofu with wood-ear fungus, shiitake mushrooms, and peanuts. We also had some pineapple shrimp, some kind of oyster pancake made of egg and other gelatinous substance, bitter melon stir fried, and curry-flavored Singapore vermicelli.

And then, the crowing dish of the night, our dessert. No, it's not Pizza The Hut from the Spaceballs movie, but a gigantic (1.5 foot-high) mountain of shaved ice smothered in sweet mung bean and red bean, oozing with condensed milk, and little chewy rice-ball kind of things at the bottom. Very impressive:

I can't resist posting some pictures of my sweet pad, in hopes that someone will see it, and be compelled to come visit and stay with me here in Beijing. Here goes.

The kitchen, stocked with wok, silverware, dishware, stemware, and dishwasher!

A lovely little welcome gift that was waiting for me when I arrived.

The rather posh living room.

Plasma TV #1

Bedroom (Plasma TV #2 off to the side)

All-glass bathroom!

Look at how neatly the maid lined up my stuff! You should have seen what a mess I left in the morning...

Warm Huanyings and Pet Peeve(s)

Yesterday was the first day in the office. Kicked off w/ a tasty Chinese breakfast in the new(ish) cafe - congee + pickled things, eggrolls, fried rice, etc. Everyone is warm and welcoming, which makes me a little sheepish that I wasn't a more gracious host to visitors when I was back in the Bay Area. I shall resolve to be better when I get back. Anyway, it was rather uneventful as people were trickling back in from their 1-week National holiday, and I was supposed to be "settling in."

I'll get to the interesting stuff. After work a handful of us walked a couple blocks to Wahaha Restaurant, a place specializing in Shanghai and Hangzhou cuisine in the heart of the Wudaokou district, for dinner. Pretty fancy schmancy decor and set-up, but for RMB343, we dined like kings on:

• Lotus root stuffed with sweet sticky rice

• Traditional "pork in pot," some of the fattiest, most succulent soy sauce-drenched pork you ever tasted. We Americans protested at all the fat, and our Chinese brethren encouraged us to try just a bit. It was delicious of course, but I almost fainted when I saw the oil starting to congeal on my plate.

• Beef slivers stir fried w/ green chilies
• Boiled dumplings
• Stir fried broccoli
• Bread-y dumpling-like buns (no idea what they are called)
• Some steamed fish that was labeled "yellowtail tuna" on the menu but was delicate and flaky, almost like butterfish, and oh so flavorful

Then sat around chatting about typical marriage ages in the US vs. China (30-35 and 25, respectively), where we've traveled and where we'd like to travel.

Lastly, a pet peeve. When people pronounce Beijing with a "zh" sound, as if they were speaking French (the "j" sound in "je ne sais pas" for instance). It's not French, and it's not "Beizhing," peoples! It's a harder "j" sound than "jam" even, maybe more like the "g" in "geriatric." Anyway, this is perhaps more annoying than people who pronounce Sichuan as "sheshwan," which is a little more excusable since many restaurants spell it "Schezwan." Sorry if I'm splitting hairs, but I had to tell someone =)

It's Autumn in Beijing

It has been, from what I gather, uncommonly gorgeous in Beijing the last couple of days. Saturday rains swept away smoke, dust and pollution, to reveal blue skies, windswept clouds and even mountains in the distance. It was perfect fall weather:


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

At around 7:30 they brought out the live entertainment, and we watched Uigher girls bellydance and sing (traditional?) songs. Sorry I accidentally shot a lot of pictures in RAW format which means I can't even open them on my laptop...so you'll have to wait 3 months for those.

MAAS - or, I Heart Technology

First, "MAAS" is the logo printed on this green button they gave me when I asked for wheelchair service at Cathay Pacific. Having twisted my ankle over six weeks ago, and still not healed, I figure I legitimately qualify as handicapped. I have no idea what MAAS stands for (May Ask for Assistance Soberly?), but it must be pretty sweet, because it affords you priority seating (even before the kiddies!) and gate to gate service.

It also earned me a lot of quizzical looks, probably because everyone else using this service was at least 70 years old. I wore my big-girl ankle brace and rolled up my jeans to make it even more obvious. At any rate I was glad for it, because I would otherwise have been hobbling the immense distances between gates very soberly indeed.

That said, I am so totally in love with technology, particularly Asia's brand of technology. Not only am I updating my blog using * free * airport wifi (never mind the exorbitant fees they charge in American airports), but I watched FOUR full movies on my personal video screen on the flight over to HK from SFO. If you're curious, they were:

• License to Wed (I couldn't help it. My former bosses produced this movie and I had to see how it turned out)
• Live Free or Die Hard (yippie ki-yay [mother father]!)
• 50 First Dates
• Mulan (one of the few Disney selections they had, and I figured I'd get myself in a right mindset for my final destination. Who'da thunk I'd get all weepy when she prepared to leave her home to defend her family's honor! How embarrassing.)

View of the space-age-looking seats on the plane: