hot&sour

I <3 Sichuan.

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The earthquake is big news here (obviously). The story becomes more tragic by the day. The other night I skipped out on a group excursion so I could have a leisurely shower and a cup of tea, and turn in early. As I was getting into the shower, I heard an interview begin on the television (which I had on in the background). The first question the interviewer asked was whether it was lucky that the epicentre wasn’t in a more populated area, such as Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. The answer (just as earnest as the question) was, yes, it was lucky.

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For breakfast we go to another hotel, where they serve a multitude of Chinese dishes, most of which wouldn’t be considered breakfast food in the West (dumplings, spicy noodles, fried rice, fried bread, and my personal favourite, watermelon). They are lined up in silver catering trays and refilled constantly for us and the hungry Chinese businessmen who (I presume) stay at the hotel. A few days ago, one of my classmates had picked up a little pot of something jelly-like to try. When he tasted it, it was completely disgusting. Several days later, he found out it was fuel, used to keep the trays warm.

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I find it annoying that I can read my blog very easily, but it’s a bitch to post anything.

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I think they’re onto some of my tricks. As you may know, I have a serious and long-standing addiction to reading recipe blogs. Most of them are blocked here. I do not see how a discussion about the virtues of using Greek-style yogurt in a cupcake recipe (or an AOL article entitled “How to Make Iced Tea”, for that matter) is a threat to the social order. But I’m stretching the limits of my computer knowledge, and possibly some internet monitor’s patience. Occasionally my tricks will stop working for a time, and I’m not sure if it’s just the idiosyncracies of the internet, or that someone is throttling my traffic. I think it’s best to err on the side of paranoia. As of now, I can’t even access my Gmail, but the China Daily is loads mockingly fast.

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Speaking of paranoia, I’m beginning to wonder if we’re under surveillance. People keep taking pictures (and video) of us for no reason. And they’re not subtle about it, either. Some guy stood around us for about 8-10 minutes the other day recording video. He would move around a bit, but always stayed within 5-15 feet of us, at one point approaching the three-foot personal space boundary that almost caused me to freak out. At other times, people will pretend they’re texting or doing something with their phones, and take pictures. It’s not like foreigners are such a rarity here anymore, so my blonde hair isn’t much of a novelty.

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Sorry I haven’t posted much. Like I said, it’s really, really, annoying. I guess I should just declare blog bankruptcy, and switch platforms. That doesn’t appeal to me.

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Several months ago, with the help of my amazing friend P, I purchased a digital SLR. It was shiny and wonderful. Then, also with P’s encouragement, I made my very first eBay purchase: a 4GB compact flash memory card, shipped directly from Shanghai to my door for a grand total of about $23 Canadian. I began shooting in .raw format (which I couldn’t do before, with only a measly 16MB memory card). Then I discovered that my computer wouldn’t recognize the .raw pictures — but I kept taking photos in the hopes that I’d be able to solve the problem. And I did. The other day I went to the largest electronics mall in Asia and for a whopping 25 kuai, bought myself a compact flash memory card reader. (It reads other cards as well, but I don’t care about those.) Afterwards we got mobbed by Olympics mascots and introduced to a crowd by some guy with a microphone as Jianadaren (Canadians), but that’s another story.

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(Interestingly, I wasn’t able to find even a 2GB memory card at that electronics mall for the same price as my eBay purchase. I guess because this mall is all legit and stuff, it’s way more expensive.)

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All that said, I haven’t uploaded any photos yet… I’ll get on that soon.

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Today was a good day, funny in a you-had-to-be-there kind of way, so I won’t get into it here. Needless to say, I <3 Beijing.

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I also <3 comments. Ahem.

I thought I had conquered the Great Firewall with my realization that I could use a VPN to circumvent it, but alas. My hotel is blocking my VPN connection (I’ve been told this is done in North America for security purposes — can anyone confirm?). I figured out a way around it, but it is annoying and time-consuming. But still. I won.

…At least temporarily. I was fooling around and rashly searched “falun” in Google to see what would happen. The answer: exactly nothing. Google didn’t load a page saying “no results” or the like; it simply didn’t load at all. “Page not found.” Since then, I haven’t been able to connect via wireless. I even tried changing my computer’s name in the vain hope the system wouldn’t recognize me. Hopefully it’s just technical difficulties. If not… oops.

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Just to catch you up on the last few days…

Darcie and I were up bright and early Friday morning to visit the Mutianyu portion of the Great Wall. We hiked until our calves were seizing up in protest, and then “tobogganed” down the slope in little plastic go-carts on a shiny metal track, laughing hysterically and tailgating each other (well, I tailgated Darcie). We also snuck into* the “non-tourist” portion of the wall, which was all grown up with trees and was inhabited by lizards and giant (like the size of a little finger!) bees**.

(*”Sneaking into” consisted of walking out the other side of a tower at the end of the tourist portion of the wall, and avoiding the guard who sat atop it, looking the other way.

**The bees were scary. At least to me. But I saw some little butterflies divebombing one of them… what’s that about?)

We ate Peking duck. Twice. Duck skin dipped in sugar is pure heaven.

And then there was more shopping, more delicious food, and a sad goodbye. Darcie went home with a few more pounds in her suitcase, and I moved up to Haidian district to start my class.

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Apparently there was an earthquake in Chengdu*** today. I missed it, though many people in tall buildings here in Beijing at the time were pretty freaked. We received a panicked phone call warning us that another earthquake was projected to hit between 10 p.m. and 12 a.m., so we shouldn’t go to sleep and should have our documents and money ready for a quick escape.

Um, yeah. Last I checked, nobody could predict an earthquake. It’s 10:30 p.m. and I’m going to sleep as soon as I’m done here.

(Chengdu is where the pandas live, about 1000 miles from Beijing.)

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As for class, I’m one of the dumb ones again.

***

I’m online! Yay for ethernet cords. Boo for slow firewall-bypassing connections.

yourefromchinasmall2

Originally uploaded by persephonica

And I won.

I made it!

Despite the crazy overbooking on Air Canada’s part that my travel agent warned me about, I was able to get on both my flights.  (I saw some pretty frustrated passengers who didn’t, however.)  I flew Toronto-Vancouver and then Vancouver-Beijing, a route that still freaks me out since it goes over Alaska and Russia, and not the ocean like you might expect to see when stirred from slumber to look out the window.

I traveled with more luggage (55 lbs worth, plus carry-ons including my camera and laptop) than I’ve ever traveled with in my life.  Last time I came to Asia for a month longer, and had 22 lbs of backpack plus a purse and camera.  Of course, I came back to Canada with a grand total of something like 44 kg — a mistake I hope not to repeat this time.  Also, I’ve got with me about a year and a half of old, unread Harper’s mags dating back to 2006 — yeah, the last time I came here.  So I’m hoping to ditch them and lighten my load somewhat.  Or make room for more Tibetan singing bowls (ohmygosh!  I just said the T-word!  I’m going on a list, for sure) and designer watches.

I watched P.S. I Love You on the plane.  Big mistake.  Then I watched Mad Money.  Big waste of time.

The Beijing airport has changed considerably since I was here last time (or maybe the difference is I arrived last time via Air China from Seoul), and there is a quick little shuttle train to take you from the arrivals terminal to the baggage pick-up.  I was a little freaked out when my luggage didn’t come out in the first two minutes as it usually does, but eventually it came and I was able to get out of there.

I exited the airport and, while in the taxi queue, opened up my suitcase and found the Red Bull and V-8 I had stashed for my jet-lag recovery (caffeine + vitamins = survival at this point).  The taxi ride was uneventful, lasted about a half an hour, and cost a grand total of RMB85 (about $14).  I arrived at the hotel around 5 p.m., and had to be taken to the “West Yard” where I’m staying with Darcie by motorcycle.  Let me just say that I’m glad I had experienced Beijing drivers before, or the minute my motorcycle guy pulled out behind a taxi and in front of a bus, with nowhere to go, I probably would have had a heart attack.  Or at least dropped the V-8 I was drinking.  But, I took it in stride, and made it to the West Yard intact.

Darcie was at the room to greet me, and we hung out in the courtyard outside our room drinking RMB7 ($1.15) Heinekens, then decided to walk to the Back Lakes district for dinner at Han Cang, a Hakka cuisine restaurant.  We had spicy pepper beef, stir-fried pea sprouts, a soft-shell turtle in some kind of sauce, and steamed and fried bread dipped in sweetened condensed milk (one of my favourite Chinese desserts).  Then we walked around the Lake District, and just when I thought I had us completely lost, we realized we were walking toward exactly the right intersection where we needed to be.

Day two was dedicated to shopping.  After “American breakfast” at the hotel, we hopped into a cab and went to Sanlitun Yaxiu Clothing Market, a mini version of the Silk Market that is not quite as insane.  I pointed out several shops I had been kicked out of two years ago.  We didn’t end up buying anything there, and went for lunch.

Lunch was an adventure, because we were looking for a dumpling restaurant I had found on a food message board for expats living in Beijing, and had been warned it was notoriously hard to find.  We walked around aimlessly after our cabbie drove around aimlessly.  We walked by a dumpling place and decided to keep it in mind in case we didn’t find anything better.  We decided to go back to the anonymous dumpling place, only to discover upon opening the menu that it was actually the one we were looking for.  I accidentally ordered us double the amount of dumplings we wanted, but it worked out well because we were perfectly full with our dumplings and our amazing spicy buckwheat noodles and our two bottles of Tsing Tao (the official beer of the 2008 Olympics, apparently).

Then we cabbed over to the Silk Market, where the fun began.  (Note that each of our cab rides cost about $2-3 Canadian, or about the same as a single subway token in Toronto.)  As soon as we walked in we were bombarded.  You can’t stop and look; you just have to keep walking until you see something you like, and then pretend not to like it.  Slowing down is weakness.  They will cull you from the herd, and then you’ll accidentally end up buying something you didn’t want or need because the pressure was so high and the price so low.

We found a shop with a bunch of Max Mara, Calvin Klein, and D&G jackets.  I already have a red Max Mara trenchcoat from last time, and immediately picked out a shorter version.  Darcie was looking at a CK trenchcoat with a cool collar and button detailing.  In a twilight-zone style turn of events, I convinced her to buy hers in red (which she never wears) and she convinced me to buy mine in green (which I never wear).  We got both for RMB200 (less than $17 each), and though we could have probably got them for less (I always think I could have gotten something for less), it was a decent purchase.  Especially when you see other people paying way more than that.

We walked around the bottom floor, where the shoes and bags are, and which is generally the most intense (though watches comes in a close second).  Darcie thoroughly enjoyed the bags section.  I joked about getting a D&G camera bag, since I needed something non-descript (well, non-camera-baggish, anyway) to carry my camera and a lens or two.  I looked at some Kipling bags but didn’t like the logo-obnoxiousness.  Then I found a cute blue leather bag with flowers (of course), only to discover it was in fact D&G.  I ended up getting it for RMB130, which is double (or more) than I normally pay for such things, but this one seemed to have a high price floor wherever I went.

In the evening we went to Bed for mojitos, sangria, and tapas (and probably spent about four fake designer bags’ worth of cash for it).

Today we attempted to sleep in, but got up at 8:30 a.m., thinking it was 9:30 a.m.  We decided to skip breakfast and save ourselves for an early lunch, so that we wouldn’t end up not being hungry for dinner (like last night).  We visited the Lama Temple in the morning, where we inhaled probably too much sandalwood incense for our own good, and gawked at monks talking on cell phones.  The Lama Temple is Beijing’s most important (”magnificent”) Buddhist temple, and has a Guinness world record plaque for the largest Buddha carved out of a single piece of sandalwood.  Definitely cool.

At around 11 a.m. we took a cab back to our hotel neighbourhood for lunch at Baguo Buyi, a Sichuan restaurant.  The servers seemed amused when we asked for “very spicy” and they gawked at us when we got our (indeed very spicy) buckwheat noodles in chili oil, mustard greens with chili and soy sauce, sizzling mushroom pot with chilis and bacon, and braised fish in what was basically a chili soup.  We were (for the most part) unfazed by the chilis, but the Sichuan peppercorns (which numb your mouth for a spell when you bite into them) may or may not have given us some kind of high.

After lunch we went to the Summer Palace, since the sky was actually blue today and I figured we would on this rare occasion be able to see across the lake there.  (Normally, all you see is a haze.)  We hiked up a huge hill through various buildings, and up way too many steps.  In the end the panoramic views of the park and the city beyond were worth it.  After a couple of hours, though, we were tired and cabbed back for a rest before dinner.  And here we are.

The end.  For now.

(Oh, PS — photos to come.  Technical difficulties.)

(PPS — this would have posted sooner, but I had to bypass the Great Firewall via a thankfully still-functioning VPN account.  WTF, China.)