We slept in this morning. By sleeping in we mean to say that we slept until the sun, people in the street, and construction woke us up, which was about 8:00. On the bright side, Morgan appears to be doing very well with the time change, much better than I did when I got here. It is great seeing Morgan in China! Again, there is so much to share with her about life in China and Chinese culture.
We got some breakfast, and Morgan has been laughing at what I consider breakfast food in China. When you’re in this country, pretty much anything that looks vaguely American and tasty becomes a suspect for breakfast food. My typical breakfast includes boiled eggs, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, yogurt, fruit, and either fruit juice, water, or tea. However, it would appear that these are not acceptable breakfast foods back home, or at least not part of them
We rode the subway over to the Ruifuxiang Market. As mentioned earlier in the journals, Ruifuxiang is an artist area in Old Beijing, where one can buy leather shadow puppets, paintings, stamps, jade, ivory, carvings, paintbrushes, art supplies, and a lot more. We strolled through the area, but it wasn’t long before we had our fill of being accosted at the stores. I will say this about Beijing: being in the tourist areas is not a good way to get a feel for the manners of Beijing people. The store owners are generally nice in the city, willing to chat with foreigners, in love with their trade, and are going to give you a fair price on goods they sell. That is not the case with people in the tourist areas; these places attract ill-mannered shopkeepers, and they are going to hound you for the entirety that you are in their stores, until you make a purchase. It is most overwhelming.
We were glad to get away from the Ruifuxiang area, as we walked through more Hutongs on the way towards Front Gate. When we got there I found – to my disappointment – that the bakery I’d visited earlier this semester had been closed, sitting vacant and devoid of any goods. Such is the case in Beijing. I also wanted to stop by the Dazhalan (Big Bamboo Gate) Hutong (the Hutong where the author ofThe Last Days of Old Beijing lived), but I found that the hutong had been demolished to make way for a pedestrian zone. However, there was a lot more interesting things to see at the Front Gate – candy stores, small restaurants, souvenir shops… We crossed the street and walked through a government-made Hutong, and into some of the silk-selling parts of Beijing.
As we walked along, we passed quite a few candy stores, but as I don’t like to eat much candy, they were of little interest to me. Morgan suggested that we stop into one, and I was pleasantly surprised to find such a large selection of candies, and a friendly staff to help us in making a candy decision. We bought a smattering of several different types of candies and flavors, the origin and nature of a few were a mystery to me.
After stopping in a few shops, we determined that we had best get some food. It was getting into the early afternoon, and we were getting hungry. I would feel like an imposter getting food in the new, government-made artificial Hutongs and thought it would be best to get some food in an authentic Chinese restaurant out of the way. We found a little restaurant that fit the bill, and they had a nice selection of roof-food (the waitress was very surprised to see me ask for the roof-food menu). We were the only foreigners in the restaurant, and as such we attracted quite a few stares from the other customers.
For lunch, I ordered egg and tomato roof-food, and Morgan got chicken and cucumber roof-food. Both of the dishes were exceedingly good, and Morgan decided to supplement her meal with some Coca-Cola. I have mentioned that many restaurants have refrigerators, but these refrigerators very infrequently run. If a drink in a restaurant is cold, it is only because of the ambient temperature. Morgan, however, was unaware of this, and I got a laugh out of her reaction to a lukewarm Coca-cola. Even with the Coke incident, I do believe that the meal was better received than the previous meal.
Before we left, I wanted to talk to our waitress and get a feel for the neighborhood. I would imagine that the people working at this restaurant don’t get out very much because when I asked where to find the large pearl market, they looked at me like a was crazy (come to find out the restaurant was not more than a mile and a half from the pearl market). We also bought some sort of dessert cake at the candy store, and we discovered that it was pretty bad. I asked the waitress what the cake was (some sort of dried fruit cake), and if she liked it. The answer was a resounding no. We weren’t alone in that respect.
We left the restaurant after eating our fill and wound our way towards the pearl market. On the way, we found one of the many outdoor, Chinese versions of a “workout facility.” This facility included items such as a shoulder aligner, a jumping practicer, tables for laying on and doing sit-ups, swings to work out your abs, and many more rather useless machines. We continued on our way.
After enlisting the help of a kindly old woman, we were headed in the right direction to find the pearl market. We had some gifts to pick up, and we found everything that we could imagine at this market. The list includes but is not limited to: scarves, ties, jump drives, cameras, batteries, memory cards, tripods, fake iPods, cell phones, wallets, shoes, purses, suitcases, clothing (male and female), pearls, jade, coral, all manner of jewelry, belts, bags, wallets, Chinese medicine, watches, Russians, American tourists, and screaming Chinese attendants. I don’t know how to describe the noise and business of the place; it was crazy. We purchased our purchases, and after burning some time at the pearl market, we were on our way.
We took a bus over to the silk market, which is another market similar to the pearl market. The main difference is that the silk market had more Russians and clothes. It was even more crowded, hot, and noisy than the last place. We made some more purchases (what will they be?!), and one of the shop owners tried to sell me a Majiang set for $90. It should have been around $15, and I left him standing in his crappy shack.
By this time, it was getting late, and was time for some food. We took the subway north on line 2 to my favorite hot pot restaurant. I may have gotten a little turned around on the way there… We won’t dwell on that, though. I ordered us a delicious meal of the best that hot pot has to offer: pork, chicken, mushrooms, tree fungus, cabbage, potatoes, pumpkins, and noodles. I thought the meal was great, but Morgan didn’t really like the hot pot. I will say that eating hot pot is an acquired taste, and my liking may have had something to do with the fact that I have been here for 3 months and have gotten used to the food. Morgan has a complementary theory that she doesn’t like watery soups, and dishes that utilize and appear to be watery soups. Hot pot is, in its simplest form, a big watery soup. I also learned that when eating hot pot at this restaurant, one can order soup that comes with different meats, including frog legs and shrimp. Pretty tasty...
We walked over to the subway station, boarded, and walked back to the dorm. We were both exhausted again. We checked our emails in the dorm, and while we were on the computer checking emails and uploading pictures, Hannah and Wes stopped by to say hello. We hung out for a few minutes, and then headed over to the hotel.
Allow me to talk about hotels in China. They are not up to par with hotels in the States; however, this hotel was leaps and bounds better than the one that I stayed in while in Chengdu. For me, it looked like walking into a 5-star facility; for Morgan, it was like walking into a Motel 6. What is China doing to me?!
Sleep.
I’ll write soon!
Jamey
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