I played hooky on Monday so I could spend another day hanging out with my guests. We decided that we would try to get them some clothes made back at the silk market so for breakfast we headed towards a place called steak and eggs that came recommended by Holly and Jason. It was a diner in the middle of Beijing which turned out to be a pretty surreal place to eat at. The food was good.

Walking to the restaurant we got to walk through Ritan which contains a lot of the embassies including the US one. I saw a building that I guessed had to be the US embassy and asked the guard who was not to keen on answering me so I started poking around the fences looking for a sign until I heard Aunt barb say that I should probably start moving. It was the US embassy and apparently they do not like people poking around it.

At the silk market I left my mom and aunt to fend for themselves in getting their clothes made while I went to look for more pant / shorts. This time I lost all inhibitions and stripped down in the middle of a crowded market to try shit on. I was not buying more presents for people who probably did not want them. At the first stall the woman kept telling me the pants would fit so I took off my pants and showed her they wouldn’t. It was not pretty.

The next stall I went to the woman told me they had sizes that were too big for me. I told her to give me the fattest size she had. I am a huge fat bastard so give me your largest size I believe were the exact words I used. I tried them on and they were way too big. She became my favorite market person ever at that point. We had to go down two more sizes to get one that fits so I bought a couple and headed back to see how the custom clothing adventure was going.

Not as well as expected, the clothes were cool and might fit but the price was pretty high. So we shopped a little more for fun stuff and headed out. We wandered back through the embassy district and towards Ritan park which is one of the four temples in Beijing, the sun temple. On the way there we saw the North Korean embassy which was pretty cool. it was larger than the US embassy and the guard there really did not want me stopping outside the gates to take a picture so you will just have to imagine it in your mind. I am willing to push the limits at a market but this guy had a machine gun.

After seeing the happy leader pictures we got to the park. There was a yoga studio in the middle which was pretty cool. The rest of the park was nice as well. Lots of spots to sit and relax and not too many people. Overall I am very impressed with the amount of parks here and their upkeep. We went to the altar in the middle and then back out.







We decided to walk up to the YaXiu market which is a little past Bodhi and which turned out to be a pretty fur piece from where we were. We walked for about an hour and saw lots of fun things on the way. As we were sitting for a second we saw a woman throwing up profusely out of a bus window, proving to my aunt that people really do throw up at the drop of a hat here. We also saw a police officer asserting his will on the populace. He asked a couple of workers for papers and then tried to pull over a bicycle rider who completely ignored him.



After finally getting to the market we decided to skip it and grab drinks instead. We did this and stopped to get yet another foot massage after this. We also went to South Beauty for dinner and tried the meat in hot oil that everyone other table appears to get. It was not as good as I had expected but the fish was good as always.

After that we took our tired bodies home and passed out.

We woke up a little earlier on Sunday because we were going to the dirt / ghost / antique market. This is a market that I have wanted to visit for a while but never made it. I am glad we finally did. It is probably one of the most interesting places I have been in Beijing. Supposedly they have real antique goods but most of the stuff appears to be replicas which I like because I can afford replicas and not the real stuff.

We picked up my friend Miao and headed to the market. At the entrance were a bunch of people selling what appeared to be tiger furs but I doubt they really were. The place was huge and full of all different types of things. This market was the only place I have seen Tang dynasty pottery which has become one of my favorites. I ended up buying some dancers from that period because I could not find the piece I really wanted in a size smaller than 1m.

Bargaining was harder than at the other markets but still had to be tried. When you walked away here they usually did not follow. The good thing was the abundance of stalls selling exactly the same thing so you had plenty of chances.



























After the market we found a tea house which was fortuitous seeing as my mother had been talking about wanting to go to one the night before. We got to sit in the special VIP room which seemed a lot like the other room but cost everyone an extra 10 quai. They of course told us this after we ordered.

The tea was good. We all got different kinds although Miao’s won for coolness. It came in a teapot with its own candle and liquid sugar that boiled out looking very suave. The food was also free so we tried at least one of everything on the menu. Most of it was Shanghainese style which I am not a bug fan of but my mom and aunt barb loved everything except the feet and necks.

After gorging ourselves on many different types of free food we wandered over to Tiananmen and walked through a park to get there. It was really beautiful and I am glad we stumbled on it. The square was pretty windy so we walked through it quickly.

After that we headed down to the hutongs and walked around there for a while. It was fun having Miao around as he could answer a lot of our questions. I finally found out what the people with nothing are selling, faked receipts to send in for expense reports. I never expected there to be a huge black market for that but there are a lot of people selling them.

We also wandered into a Chinese medicine store which was one of the oldest in Beijing. It was fun just walking around and seeing all the different things. That area remains one of my favorite in Beijing.

I was able to find what I think was where I developed my love for hot pot. The first place I went to last august when I was here for a week only. It looks very similar and has about the same number of small streets to wander down to get to.

We wanted to see the flag lowering ceremony in the square so we headed back to get good spots. We managed to get a pretty good place but we could have stood anywhere and seen over almost everyone, at least my mom, aunt barb and I. The tour group next to us was talking about how unfair it was that the foreigners got to see and they did not, thanks Miao for the translation. I felt bad for a second but remembered that we were standing behind everyone else and the only reason we could see was genetic.

I ended up holding my camera up for a group of around 8 people behind me as a gesture of compassion. At first I did not realize people were watching the screen of my camera until Miao mentioned something, once I realized though it was pretty easy to still take pictures and let everyone see when I wasn’t.

We had to skedaddle (spelled correctly on the first try according to Word, I am awesome) after this to get to the hotel where I thought we were supposed to meet the parents of one of my friends from Seattle. Her parents were on a tour and their first stop after Turkey was Beijing. We went to the hotel were I thought they were staying and after looking for every possible variation of their name I used their business center to find out they were staying in a hotel that had no words in common with the hotel we were at except for hotel.


We finally got there and met up with them. It was interesting to talk to them because they have spent a lot of time traveling and done some really interesting things in their lives. After talking we headed back to Sanlitun for foot massages and more pizza. A good way to end a full day.

My mom and aunt slept late, you know it was late if I was up for 2 hours before them. Makes sense though as they had such a long flight before they got in and we stayed up pretty late. Once they finally woke up we went up to Wudaokou to grab some breakfast and walk around.

At the coffee shop / bakery we went to, we got some of my favorite pastries here which I had highly recommended to everyone. My aunt took a bite of my favorite donut which I had just told her was the best thing in the world and almost spit it back out on the plate. Apparently she is not a big fan of red bean.

After this we wandered around and looked at clothes stores that had no where near the right size for any of us. One place had shoes that both my mom and aunt fell in love with. After asking if they had them in a size 40-42 we were directed to one shelf on one rack in the corner. We also saw Murphy Brown in the ATM when we pulled money out.




With new fat wallets we decided to hit the first of the three big markets, the silk market which specializes in fake branded clothes (North fake anyone?) and silk (Go figure). Before we got there though we wandered around Guo Mao where they have food thought which I can only imagine to be some kind of heaven on earth where you think about food and it appears.



The silk market was fun as always. I got some pants where the bottoms zipped off to make shorts for Cambodia. I held them up for length and everything looked all right, too bad that I got home and they appeared to be made for people with a negative body fat index. I couldn’t even fit a leg into them. We also ran into more mannequins but these were the glamour kind so they were not talking to anyone.





After this we went to the metro café for a good Italian dinner and some dessert at the green t house which sat us at their large center table even though we did not have reservations. More dry ice and overpriced dessert in a really fun environment.

Friday was a busy day. My mom and aunt came in around 9-ish. I ended up staying at work a little late so by the time I got home I was a little later in getting dressed and ready. I got to the airport late enough to make me question whether they had exited customs or not. Finally though I saw them wandering around in the customs area and we managed to meet up.

After going home to drop off their stuff, I got the unique opportunity to meet my girlfriend’s parents without my girlfriend with my mom and aunt in a foreign country for all of us. It turned out to be a great time. I got lots of really good Taiwanese beef jerky that I have been trying to ration since I got it for my trip to Cambodia. We had lots of getting to know one another conversation then left to grab some food for my guests.

Instead of eating first though we decided to stop by Bodhi for a foot massage which according to my aunt is the best way ever of getting off a long plane trip. After a little relaxation we went to the tree for the first of a couple pizza nights and grabbed some late night drinks and food. It was good catching up with my mom and aunt and I think they enjoyed getting some familiar food in their bellies before we finally got home way to late, around 4ish.

There were a couple of interesting things that happened on Thursday. We went to a Yunnan restaurant to have dinner. The first one we went to was closed but the second was open. I extended the types of foodI have eaten here to donkey. It was alright, tasted a lot like pork. The rest of the food was pretty good. I expected it to be a lot spicier but it was just spicy enough.

The other exciting thing that happened was I showed William the DVD store by my house so he could pick up some things before he went back to India. While there I was able to find Dizzee Rascal’s first album and pick it up for a little over a dollar. This development is going to make me pay a little more attention to the CD selection at stores from now on.

Wednesday was my introduction to Chinese opera. One of the guys I work with Miao, bought tickets for him, me and Hua. The opera we were going to see was from a town south of Shanghai that is supposed to be where Chinese opera originated from. It was also the Chinese equivalent of the ring cycle. This version was only three nights long at about 3 hours a performance. Normally the entire performance takes about a week. They cut out all the gratuitous sex scenes to make it shorter. I was a surprised as you, opera and gratuitous sex don’t usually spring into my mind together but I guess this older school of opera was written with man’s baser desires in mind.


We saw the middle performance which was a love story between a ghost and her lover that caused her death in a dream before she met him. I really enjoyed the performance. I had prepared myself for “a cultural experience” after having been told by lots of people that Chinese opera was like cats yowling with lots of subtleties that would be lost on me. I am sure that I missed a lot of the small things but this performance had English subtitles written by the director (a literature professor at UC-Santa Barbara so the subtitles were not of the normal Babelfish variety) and I was able to keep up with the story pretty well. Hua and Miao actually ended up using the English subtitles at points because the Chinese was an older dialect that was not very easy to understand.




The music was amazing, the singing was very good except for the male lead which I did not find that enjoyable, and the story was great. I actually want to see the other two parts of the cycle because the story was so engaging. I am really glad I went to this performance as opposed to some of the more kitschy ones. I feel like they would not have been half as much fun. One thing that really made this one enjoyable was the lack of seriousness at some points. It was not afraid to inject a little humor in the performance.

It was at Beijing University which is a beautiful campus. We were able to walk around the campus some before the opera. It was built on an old imperial garden and was a very famous lake with no name and some temples. Edwin Snow is also buried here for those of you up on your communist sympathizers of the 50’s.

Tuesday was more of the dust storms. Today was so bad though that I did not want to take my camera out to take a picture of anything for fear it would get a bunch of dust inside of it and stop working.

At first I was kind of intrigued by the concept of a sandstorm as an exotic weather phenomenon that I would never encounter in the US unless I started spending way more time than is healthy in the dust bowl. That intrigue stops being interesting about five minutes into walking around in this weather. It is right on the border of supreme annoyance. You never feel like any permanent damage is going to occur but it really is not a lot of fun.

First your nose fills up which is actually a good thing because it stops being a source of annoyance then your mouth fills with dust only to be spit out or swallowed allowing it to be refilled again. Your eyes are the worst though. Your eyelashes catch a bunch of dust which then drags against your eyes causing them to tear which rinses the dust from your eyes which allows them to fill up with new dust. I know awesome, you wish you were here to experience this. Olympic sprinters, the best of luck to you. The last thing that happens is your shoes fill up with dust and your clothes slowly get coated. Oh, I almost forgot, it fills up in your hair as well making your hair feel like you have been swimming for a couple of hours straight.

I had a one on one today with my mentee and we were in the lounge looking out over the street when a dust storm hit. You could watch it sweep through the street driving most people into doorways or crouching down to avoid it. The one amusing thing about the storms are the fashions they inspire, everyone looks vaguely like cobra commander.

Alright this should be the last sand storm post unless something crazy happens.

Monday was an exciting day. I woke up and everything was covered in about an inch of dust. Yes it was another heavy sandstorm while I slept.

The other exciting thing that happened today was that I got my plane ticket to Cambodia. I am excited about that trip. It should be really cool.