Back To Beijing: the unOlympic part
Trip Start
Jun 10, 2008
1
7
21
Trip End
Jan 25, 2009
Beijing,
China
Saturday, August 9, 2008
recent history. Unfortunately, they cleaned up the city too much, no
grilling outside, closed nightmarkets, put up walls blocking views of
the older, more aged areas of the old Ming city, really took some of
the soul out of the city. But still, I love Beijing. The history,
culture and character are very vibrant - the people are excellent. I
had a woman take her daughter by the hand and baby on her chest sprint
3 blocks to show me a bus stop once. The area I stayed, Qianmen in the
old Ming city, right next to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City,
was incredible. Extremely bustling, mostly with Chinese people, and
the architecture was all in the old style built in winding mazes of
Hutong alleys. I loved staying there, always someone interesting to
talk to and at night I could get beat awfully at Chinese chess by old
Chinese men outside. I'm getting a lot better.
Of course we tried out some of the bar districts. The usual college
student haunts were largely closed because they didn't pay the
government the Olympic endorsement fee or something, so that was a real
bummer. There's a great cheap student bar and pizza scene around
Beijing University (called Wudaokou) and two particularly good places -
a sandwich place with a happy hour from 8-10 and a really good pizza
place (as in better than most pizza I've eaten in the states) with a
happy hour from 10-12.
Qianmen 1
These places usually make good starts to anevening, but, unless we wanted to go all the way across the city for a
$8 cab ride and drink at the expensive foreign expat bar area, that was
usually it (other than watching some Olympic highlights at any place
with beer and a TV). We went over to the other area twice, but that
was definitely enough. Drinks are expensive, it's kind of an
over-the-top gimicky torusit scene there (Sanlitun), and the people
generally sucked. Maybe if I'm ever loaded a few of the bars seems all
right, but not right now.
If you look in the right place, there's still some of the classic
essence of Beijing lurking around the winding curves of undeveloped
parts of the Hutongs. The people who find out you speak a little
Chinese and will tell you the whole story of their life in Beijing, or
the ins-and-out of what busineses they run (i.e. how they stay popular
while still making money of the tourists. My favorite part was
definitely the large Ouigher population in the city. At least every
other day I'd sit and watch the Olympics at a Xinjiang resteraunt I
found while wandering down some old alleyways and eat the best food in
China. Barbecued bread dumplings, "Big plate chicken" (the literal
translation), lamb and sweet rice, the Xinjiang version of Pakistani
milk tea. Mmmmmmmm I'll miss Ouigher food. Wang Laoshi, my classes
Chinese professors, treated us all to Beijing roast duck at one of the
best resteraunts in the city the day before Adam and Jeronimo left.
Qianmen 10
Beijing is a fun city, and China is a fun country, and the most fun
part is always the eating.
The food is so good, and relaxing, eating, and drinking is such an
integral part of their culture. Its the highlight of the day. It's
almost like all the years of hardship have conditioned Chinese people
to love every single second they eat, and they really eat like they'll
never see food again. But you know, it is Chinese food, so one second
your so full you can barely walk, and an hour later you're starving
again. Max and I found this one resteraunt aptly named The Stomach
Explodes Oil. This is really just a mistranslation of the name of
these roasted bread things filled with delicious oily mutton that they
make there, but it's also an accurate description of what happens in
your body when eat them. When you bite into these things, this lamb
grease just explodes out ofall sides an invariably a lot drips on the
plate, the table, and sometimes yourself. Within a minute, this stuff
had solidified into a solid half inch thick piece of gelatinous lard in
the bottom of my bowl. And I ate like a dozen, so imagine that
happeneing in your belly. I really felt like I had to be rolled out of
there. Food coma doesn't even come close to describing the feeling of
being so full you feel drunk, like all systems shut down. Max and I
took a cab to go 2 blocks to meet a friend because we couldn't walk it,
and once there I promptly just took a seat on the sidewalk. O the
wonders of eating Chinese food.
Thankfully, the weather did clear up for the Olympics and we got
some clear, beautiful days. You could actually see all the way to the
mountains the Great Walls runs along to the north from the the northern
part of the city. I spent a lot of time on these days drawing and
wandering around the nearby Temple of Heaven park and the new and old
Summer palaces in the north. They were actually having a huge lotus
show in the Old Summer Palace. You can see all three in my pictures.
Also, when the sun sets all the locals fill the Temple of Heaven to do
taichi, excercise, talk, sing, and hang out. It was really excellent
to see how many come out at night to enjoy such simple pleasures.
Again, the right time of day, Beijing turns from a modern city swamped
with tourists into a home for the locals. I'll put up a little entry
on each place of note I went mostly for the pictures.
