China 2006

Wowsa Maosa

I finally got over my jet lag today. I don't feel like I am on a boat anymore. For the first few days I felt like I was rocking on a boat. I think it was a combination of exhaustion and claustrophobia. We are in Beijing right now and have been ripped off approximately two times so far. Saw Mao's corpse today and the Forbidden City. It is snowing and butt ass cold. Supposedly today was the coldest it has been in Beijing in the past ten years. However tomorrow we fly to tropical Hainan. I can't wait to be warm.

The second day we were here, we went to Tienemens square where some art students invited us to look at their work at the museum where they were having an exhibition. We figured they were going to try to sell us something but they were really nice, gave us hot tea, and explained what the different characters meant, etc. One of them was majoring in calligraphy so she wrote our names in Chinese and she showed us how certain characters represented what they stand for. Then they invited us to help the students’ college fund by buying anything we liked. I don’t whole-heartedly feel this counts as one of the times we got ripped because I think it was worth the money that I spent. However, I think they sold it to us for more money then they thought it was worth. Unlike the guard at Mao’s corpse, who underhandedly yanked the money from Lisha’s frenzied, fumbling fingers, these girls were so charming we were happily obliged to hand over our money. Suuuuuuuuckeeeeeers!

After that we went to this restaurant called A Fun Ti. (a foon tea) I think this may be a Chinglish attempt at A fun Time. We went here because we heard it was a party, had good food, and if all went well you’d be dancing on the tables. The host there took an instant liking to me and every chance he got to herd me up to the stage where they had Russian dancers, quasi belly dancers, and a singing duet, he did. Luckily they wanted a young man for the snake-dancing performance. A meat/egg? pie, garlic broccoli, and some boney fried chicken graced our table. I think the food in general was a cross between Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Chinese, and Lebanese. Don’t quote me on that though. The beer was flowing and I was dancing on tables.

Tonight we had a quiet meal at a little sechuan place close to our hostel. We are spending the rest of the night talking to other travelers such as Thom, Hans maybe?, and the co-owner of the restaurant. His name is Yao and has been teaching us the northern dialect of Chinese. In Beijing, Chinese is apparently slightly different then the Chinese in Ningbo. He is really cool and beers are only 5 quay.