So during my hour long commute (30 minute walk to work and then back) I’ve been thinking about what I was going to write here. I was going to leave out a few things from my first week here, but I wanted to write down something about dining here as at times it can be greatly amusing (maybe this shows my humor).
Let me begin by telling you a bit about how interesting it is to eat in China. First, in most of the restaurants I’ve been to, no one speaks English. In many of these places, there is no English menu either. That means if I’m lucky they have pictures in the menu and I find something that looks good, point to it, and get it. Now (I hesitate to call him this) my friend Paul from work told me that he has also taken the waiter or waitress to a table where someone is eating something he wants and he points to it. I have yet to try this approach. So anyway, sometimes you get lucky and someone in one of these places speaks at least a little bit of English. The other night I was at one such place. The waitress recommended some dishes to me and as I’m ordering these, she walks away to talk to another of the staff. A minute later she comes back and asks me if I want that “spic or no spic”. I just look at her trying to figure out what she is talking about, so she repeats herself “spic or no spic”. At this point I’m starting to look around thinking that maybe this girl is a bit racist, but I don’t see any Mexicans around, so I’m still looking at her with this stupid look on my face. Finally she writes down what she’s trying to say…S-P-I-C-Y. “OH! Spicy! Yeah, I would like it a little bit spicy”. This is just one example of how interesting ordering food over here can be. It is also interesting to read the English on some of these menus, because many of these have words spelled wrong.
So onto my weekend! I decided I was going to start the weekend by heading to the Forbidden City. I think that the cab driver was trying to make an extra buck because he took me the long way to get there. Finally I get there and have to tell some lady that was insisting that I needed a tour guide that I would be fine without one. Instead I rented one of the automated tour guides, which was a bit of a waste of money because I didn’t really listen to it. Although I did pick up a few interesting facts, one of which is if you look at the pictures and notice on the corners of the buildings there are little statues. The more of these that appear on the corner of the building, the greater importance this building had. So I walked around the city and explored, coming across a Starbucks inside the Forbidden City! (Check out my other entry about this) It was a very smoggy day, so most of the pictures look hazy. One of the worst things is the constant smog, although as I mentioned in a previous entry work is being done to remedy this. As I was leaving the Forbidden City and headed to Tienanmen Square, this gentleman started talking to me. Now for those of you that don’t know, many of the Chinese people LOVE to talk with Westerns so that they can practice their English. So this gentleman is talking with me and I’m a bit annoyed because I’m trying to look around and explore, but I continued to talk with him and his niece (this turned out to be a good thing). The gentleman (unfortunately I don’t remember his or his niece’s name) spoke excellent English, which turned out to be because he is an English teacher. He is quite knowledgeable about America and China, so we had some good conversation which I enjoyed. His niece is a doctor that is in town visiting her uncle and he was showing her the sights. We continued to walk through Tienanmen and he explained the area and that which surrounds it to me and his niece. We continued walking into Old Beijing and saw some buildings from the old dynasties. There is an old pharmacy that all doctors in China learn about because it used to supply the Emperors in the Forbidden City with their medicine. Being a doctor, his niece wanted to see this, so we went in and he showed me many different items (many of which were quite interesting, like the penises from a number of animals) and told me what each of the items was used for. After this we went to a tea house for a traditional chinese tea ceremony. This is something that only used to be done for nobility, like the Emperors. Now this was something I don’t think I would have ever done if I hadn’t met these two. So we try six different teas as part of the ceremony and then the girl leading asks if we would like to purchase any tea. I decided that there were a couple different teas that I liked, so I purchased those. Now at this point, I still don’t know how much everything is going to cost. It comes time to pay and I offer to pay for the tasting for my two new friends as I was extremely grateful to them and was happy that I met them and talked with them. At this point I get a price list…I start thinking “I don’t have enough cash with me”…luckily they took plastic cash. So I pay for my tea and three tastings. I get my receipt and it is 3990 Yuan! For those who don’t know the conversion rate is approximately 8 Yuan to 1 Dollar. I’m not sure how quick everyone is with their math, but that is almost $500!!!!! I spent almost $500 on tea!!!! (Thanks Tom and Jay! 🙂 I’m just kidding) I was in shock. Because I paid for the tasting, the niece bought me this wonderful tea set (I have posted pictures of it) so that I could bring it home and serve everyone tea. Once we got our items and paid, we headed off for a wonderful Chinese dinner. After dinner we parted ways, but not before exchanging email addresses. I really hope to hear from them as they were extremely nice and once we had started talking, I really enjoyed their company. I realized that it is good to take time to talk with different people. I am extremely grateful for having met these two.
Sunday I decided to head back to Tienanmen Square so that I could explore a bit more on my own. I wanted to get a few more pictures and see what I could find. Again I had a number of people that wanted to talk with me. I then headed back to Old Beijing where I walked through the hutongs and found a little place for lunch where I had some of the best dumplings ever! From here I walked to the Pearl Market to explore there. Then I headed to see part of the defense wall left from the Ming Dynasty. It was then off to Silk Street to check this area out a bit more. By this point I was beat from all of the walking I had been doing. I have no clue how many miles I walked, but it was quite a few!
My weekend ended Monday morning when I woke up early to see the end of the Steelers game. Pittsburgh’s going to the Superbowl! What a way to end a wonderful weekend! This coming weekend starts Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). I’ve already heard firecrackers being set off in the area. I’m hoping to find a number of little festivals around that I can take part in.
Don’t forget to check out my pictures. Almost 300 from this weekend alone! I look forward to hearing from everyone.