Friday was a lot of fun but it started off with a lot of no fun.

i am not the biggest fan of writing my reviews at work so i had put off my mid-year review until a week before it has to be commented on and submitted. Needless to say my manager was not excited about this but i finished it up on Friday.

for lunch i wandered home and yachi made some good food for us. This was a nice switch and gave me a chance to see what the walk home looked like in the middle of the day.

this pictures are the result of that wandering. i have to admit i thought it strange that this little girl was striking out on her own with no adult supervision. i think she lives up around the corner as i have seen her a few times since with some people who i am assuming are her parents.

the funniest thing i did all week i did while i was at home for lunch. yachi and i were sitting on the couch and i managed to get one of her fingers up my nose to about the first knuckle. i have not laughed that hard in a while. She was disgusted of course but could not stop laughing. As Morgan would say we have become too comfortable with one another. i laughed about that all the way back to work.

i stuck around work for a couple of meetings and what not but still could not manage to finish my review so i decided to take off early and meet yachi at the coffee shop to finish it. Yes there are coffee shops here and they are almost exactly the same as the us.

considering the place yachi was at got sued by starbucks for trying a little too hard to emulate it's multi-national big brother it is no surprise that they are almost identical. They both have free wireless and $3-5 drinks. i cannot believe people would pay 30 quai for a coffee (unless they were still receiving an American salary and have a really favorable exchange rate).

on the way to the coffee shop i saw what might qualify as the most stereotypically Chinese thing i have seen since being here. The pic on the left tries to capture it but it is hard to see. Also this pic starts the first of a series that you should probably click on to see the large version and all the things in the pic.

this large group of security guards was practicing martial arts in the middle of the cement sport area near my house, poorly i might add. i watched them side kicking in turns for a while and kept expecting some hero to come walking out into the middle of the field and challenge them to a fight were he / she kicked all their asses by her / himself.

Michael schumacher will not stop following me. i saw his bike again but could not locate him. He was probably hiding out somewhere spying on me.

after the coffee shop yachi and i wandered home to get ready for our big nice dinner in Beijing. i had made reservations at the nicest (according to the guide books and the issue of wine spectator that has an article on Beijing) restaurant in Beijing.

the walk home provided us with many interesting sights though. The first of which was this handicapped motorcycle. The little green sticker is a handicapped sticker and the license plate is actually a handicapped plate. i am not sure who is handicapped though the driver or the passenger on the back. Also i am not quite sure what this buys you in china. There is no handicapped parking and good luck trying to get in any of the buildings here if you are handicapped. i have yet to see one wheelchair accessible building. Ok actually i have seen a couple but they are all by accident. Basically they have a door on the street level or something. For anything with a door that does not open in the street it is only steps. Maybe everything will be handicap accessible by the Olympics.

we also saw what might be the weirdest breed of dog ever. It looks like a normal dog that was cut in two and two pieces that are nowhere near the same size were glued back together. These dogs are all over now. Apparently they can only be seen in the spring.

side note, it is officially spring here. The weather is not really that different but the government decreed it to be spring and all the buildings / people / etc... Are now springified. You might ask what does springified mean, good that you have me here to fill you in.

all the guards have dropped their winter uniforms which appeared to be trenchcoats over what you would expect a guard to be wearing. Now they all have some sort of teddy Roosevelt rough rider outfit going on. You know the cowboy hat rolled up on one side and lots of buttons. Also the main doors of most buildings are open. In the winter they open the doors in a weird opposite way. It is hard to describe but i will give it a valiant effort. Imagine two sets of doors both sets containing three doors. In the first set, the far left door is open. In the second set, the far right door is open. This is supposed to conserve heat as it makes it go farther or something. Anyways now they just have both middle doors open so you can walk right in.

this is yachi and i all dressed up for dinner in my house. i found out how to set the timer on my camera. Next up learning how to set the timer on my obsoleted vcr.

so a little background on the courtyard aka the restaurant we were going to. First none of the cabs we got into knew where it was going which is weird because the second point i was going to bring up is that it is across the moat from the east gate of the forbidden city. Everyone knows where the forbidden city is and given that piece of knowledge it is not hard to find the east gate. You just go to the forbidden city and drive around the perimeter. Anyways after trying two cabs near my house we ended up walking to the hotel and getting the doorman to question cab drivers until one who knew how to get there was found.

as i said the restaurant is on the moat of the forbidden city. Me being the romantic type i had made reservations a while before and requested the only window seat in the house. When we got there we got the table i reserved (i know this should not have been a surprise but you did not hear the reservation call and the confusion on both sides). The table was indeed the only one that looked out on said moat and the forbidden city and it was even set off the main dining room. Yes very romantic and i know at this point all the ladies are cursing their luck right now for not having a boyfriend as thoughtful as me.

this pic to the right is the view out of our private little floor to ceiling window. Me ever being the gentleman i let yachi see out this side. It was a phenomenal view and you could even watch a guy fishing off the bridge you see for the majority of the night.

the restaurant itself was alright. The wine list was good but at this point i am happy to see anything other than great wall and dynasty. It was strong in Bordeauxs and as overpriced as you would imagine a good wine list in Beijing to be. It was nice to have the first glass of real wine i have had since in china though (i will not count the local vino).

it was to be a night of firsts in china i guess. It was also the first night i had used a fork and knife since i left the hotel. There actual were no more firsts but that first sentence sounds so ostentatious that i have to leave it.

the pic on the left was my view which was awesome as well but a little darker than the other.

as we were sitting there eating it finally hit me what the restaurant struck me as, a British colonial establishment from the early 20th century. It was all old white people in Beijing eating so-so French food and drinking good wine. Definitely colonial. Worth the view though.

after the dinner we decided to walk around the forbidden city some. It is really pretty at night and i wish i had a couple of better photos. Unfortunately it was kind of cold and i had drank the better part of the bottle of wine so my fingers were even shakier than normal. The two pictures you see are all that were not fuzzy from about 20 total.

it was a popular place to walk around at night and i am sure i will make it back some night when it is warmer out and try to take some better pictures. i want to get all the flags on the walls surrounding mao's picture at nights so stay tuned.