China Adventure Recap

Overall Thoughts

(This was written on my last morning when I was waking up. For the record, my first meal back was a bagel w/ egg and cheese - and later, personal pan pizza, I think. Mom & Dad made a very delicious NON-ASIAN meal to welcome my tired dragging self home.)

-Beijing drivers have no sense of traffic rules, no matter what. A drive is always nervewraacking. Yet almost all cars have not a scratch on them.

-Subways are very crowded – and just when you think a car is packed by American standards, they cram more people in. No personal space; shoving is commonplace.

-If I never see a squat toilet again, or have to carry my own toilet paper or hand sanitizer, it would not be soon enough.

-Dragonfruit is one of my new favorite fruits.

-Chinese hotel breakfast is nothing like American breakfasts. Kind of good though.

-I eat two meals a day here – I could get into this habit – oh wait, I do.

-RMB to USD conversion still gives me a headache.

-Everything is so cheap.

-I can’t wait to sleep in my own more comfortable bed.

-Brushing one’s teeth with bottled water takes a little practice.

-While I’ve had great and delicious meals here, I’m looking forward to a bacon cheeseburger or something equally American.

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And here's a quick list of links of all the China posts for your viewing pleasure:

China, Day .5 and Day 1
China, Day 2 and Day 3
China, Day 4
China, Days 5 and 6
China, Day 7
China, Day 8
China, Day 9 - Forbidden City, Tianamen, Hutong
China, Day 10.1 - Great Wall
China, Day 10.2 - Summer Palace
China, Day 11.1 - Temple of Heaven
China, Day 11.2 - Wangfujing Snack Street

China, Day 11.2 - Wangfujing Snack Street

Saturday, October 30, 2010

A fellow blogger and friend mentioned that a place we couldn't miss was Wangfujing Snack Street. And she was right. I haven't seen anything like it ever in my life. Virtually anything you wouldn't believe they'd serve as food, they do.





One of my fellow companions, PP, was determined to try scorpion. And he did. And then our other adventurous eater, KS, also tried one. Both tried further amazing items that the rest of us (AB and I) wouldn't touch. If I don't know what it is, I won't touch it and 95% of what I could identify, I didn't really want to get anywhere near.



I was, however, content to watch and take pictures. I don't recommend looking at these pictures while eating and/or if you have a weak stomach. What I didn't include is the video of the scorpions alive, wiggling on their sticks - pre-cooking.

For your viewing pleasure:

Scorpions (you can't see them waving here):



Bugs of unknown nature:



Seahorses:



Candied apples (relatively safe):



Unknown seafood creatures:

Yes, those are centipedes or millipedes:



LRK, don't look here - ewwww spiders? Really?



OMG, no:









This looks safe, but probably isn't:



We also visited a nearby silk mall…





and a tea shop (no pictures), and grabbed some green tea ice cream. And tried to hail a cab which was nearly impossible, even using their secret weapon (me, the token Asian). We encountered a Beijing mental health hospital, innumerable bikes and a Chinese Fire station.









And we capped off our final meal at a place with little English on the menu and near to the hotel. We again had our secret weapon, LKL, who helped us pick just the right dishes. Including an amazing tofu one that was like soft tofu (but consistency of polenta) in what seemed to be a sweet and sour sauce.



Then it was one last meet-up for a drink and off to bed for me. I had the oh-dark-thirty flight which I complained about at the time, but in retrospect was the lucky one. Three of my companions who also left on Halloween got stuck with travel delays for about a half day or so... I was home in St Louis before they were taking off from Beijing.

I have a handful of photos from the airport and a summary post to follow and I'll finally be caught up... almost a month later.

China, Day 11.1 - Temple of Heaven

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Today was Temple of Heaven day. KS and I went to it while PP and AB went shopping at the Pearl Market. We spent about 1.5 hours there, wandering through the lovely temples and structures. Perhaps more interesting was stumbling onto several groups of synchronized dancers. It was to some annoying music but they were all dancing the same way – mostly waving arms and hand movements with simple steps – both men and women. It was like nothing else I’ve seen.

Then we tried to find the Underground City, built basically as a HUGE bomb shelter but it’s been closed since KS's guidebook was published.

From there, we went straight on to the Wangfujing Snack Street - but that deserves its very own post.















Here's the dancing - I have a better, cuter video but it's turned sideways and I need to edit it:

China, Day 10.2 - Summer Palace

After our Great Wall climb, we were hungry so our driver found us a great resturant nearby. A real hole in the wall with great food. Again, it was an authentic meal because there was no translation (again, thankful for LKL, who picked us out some great food). One of the dishes was a chicken and veggie dish whose taste was very reminiscent of buffalo chicken, chinese-style.





Almost all of us fell asleep on our way to the Summer Palace, where we only had 2 hours before it closed. We raced through and took as many pictures as possible and sat in a lot of Beijing rush-hour traffic on a Friday night which was apparently the worst time of all.































For dinner we had Peking Duck - it was VERY delicious. It was at a place recommended by the hotel, so a little pricey compared to some of our previous meals, but still worth it. We also had a great eggplant dish which probably had plum and black bean sauce and was AMAZING. No pictures of this meal since my camera battery died while we were downstairs and I had no spares with me.

More random pictures:





I think we're nearing the end of the China Adventure. Only one more day to post about, I think and then a wrap up post or two, perhaps. Temple of Heaven and the Wangfujing Snack Street. Those are posts you don't want to miss.

China, Day 10.1 - Great Wall

Day 10, Friday, October 29, 2010

This post is so image-heavy and the 100-odd pictures associated with this partial day adventure on Flickr that I've divided this full day into two posts.

One of my colleagues hired a driver to take us to the Great Wall and it was great. He got us up to the Mutanyu portion of the Great Wall where we took a slightly nervewracking (for me) chair lift ride up, then a lot (A LOT) of stairs along the great wall. It was amazing up there. And then we tobogganed down. No kidding. It was so fun.

I cannot emphasize how magnificant the wall was - we were all in awe and our legs got severely punished with the steep stairs. There would be stair rises that were up to my knee. But the climb was well-worth it and I was glad to see that I wasn't the only one hurting. We did alright that day - but the next day, we ALL felt it.

Here's just a FEW of the pictures from the trip - be sure to check them all out at flickr in my China Adventure Set.























These steps are almost annoying as the ones that came up to my knees:







More than one crazy person climbed the wall in HEELS:



None of which were in our group.













There were several animals at the Great Wall:







This is our driver "fighting" with a parking attendant. We're not sure if it was a real fight or not... but shoving was involved. And words.



BTW, our driver won.



The white paint on the trees serves as a 'guardrail' of sorts at night.

Lastly, further proof that painted lines on the roads are not paid attention to, including our driver who had us all gripping our seats more than once:



More about Day 10.2 tomorrow!