May 9-20
Best meal in China
After school one day, Ashley and I set off to navigate the Beijing public transportation system. Megan had left school early that day with our faculty advisor and one of our other classmates to tour the Beijing Raptor Rescue Center, where Megan would be working for the month of June. So the plan was to meet up with those folks at the Temple of Heaven for some quality sightseeing and then find a good spot for a meal.
We went to the closest bus stop with a list of buses that would take us to the closest subway station. After waiting for a while with none of our listed buses appearing, a friendly student asked where we were going. To our surprise, he nicely told us that any bus would take us to the subway station! So we got on the next bus. To our surprise, any bus does not take you to the subway station, which we realized after we turned off the main road, heading away from the where we knew the subway station to be. (Thanks for trying, nice student.) So we got off at the next stop, crossed the street, and starting making plans for a new route. There were many people who spoke English in Beijing, especially this close to a university, so we asked lots of people for help. The general consensus was the next subway stop was “too far” to walk. Yet still… when we looked at our maps, this just didn’t seem to be true. So we walked, and checked our maps, and checked streets signs, and walked, and there you go – we made it to the subway! We never were sure why our Chinese helpers were so adamant that it was “too far.” It was several kilometers, for sure; maybe that is “too far” for the average Chinese person on the street….
Anyway, we were very proud of our successful navigation to the subway, but when we got in touch with Megan et al., we found out that the Temple of Heaven was already closed for the day! (One more acupuncture course gripe: getting out of class too late in the day to see cultural sites before closing.) So we instead made plans to meet up for dinner in a hutong somewhere near Andingmen. Ashley and I wandered around, looking for several different bars/restaurants that had been recommended to us. We ended up stopping for a drink outside an unknown place and got to chatting with some Canadian ex-pats outside. They told us we had happened upon one of their favorite places in Beijing! When Megan et al. arrived, we let our new friends order for us since the menu was entirely in Chinese (no pictures here) and they seemed to know their stuff. We ended up enjoying some of the best food of my entire trip! In addition, our new friends were in a band and invited us to their show at a local music club in a few days.
On our way back, we got to appreciate the out-in-the-boonies aspect of our current lodgings. We caught the last subway cars just a little before 11pm. When we got off the subway, we were still a good 20-30 minute walk to our hotel, which we didn’t want to walk in an unknown neighborhood that late at night. We went through a bunch of cabbies before we finally found someone willing to take us home.
Live music in Wudaokou
Several of us headed out to hear the Canadians we met a couple of days ago play in their band. They were playing at a club called D-22 in a neighborhood called Wudaokou. Wudaokou is close to several big universities, has a large international student population, and is supposed to be a pretty cool place with lots of bars and clubs. Even though we had the exact address, when our cabs deposited us on a street corner nearby (one of many instances where the cabbies seemed to prefer dumping us off close to where we were going instead of taking us all the way there) we had some trouble finding the place. After turning in circles a few times, we asked for help. This resulted in one of the many instances where we were amazed at how helpful people were! The couple we asked literally spent 15 minutes with us to send us off in the right direction. They didn’t know exactly where it was, but they accompanied us to a store to ask for help, asked other people for help on our behalf, etc. It was truly amazing. (Although I have to admit, there were a few times in China I asked for help and was frustrated with how helpful people were – “Dude, just admit you don’t know what I’m looking for and let me go so I can ask someone else!”)
We eventually did find the bar and spent the evening drinking, playing foosball, and listening to the bands. A few nights before, a couple of our friends had gone out in Wudaokou and had a hard time getting back to the hotel – the same old no-cabs-want-to-go-to-your-stupid-hotel-in-the-boonies problem. Since Megan, Ashley, and I had been in China longer and were pretty confident navigators/phrasebook users/cajolers, we figured we wouldn’t have as much trouble. Still, it was interesting to see how much the neighborhood shut down at night. The streets were happening when we got there around 8ish. When we left around midnight, the place was deserted – and this was supposed to be a bar/club neighborhood! It was weird. After several cabs refused, we were eventually able to find a ride back to the hotel.
Silk Market
One day after class, another friend of mine and I headed downtown to the world famous Silk Market. The Silk Market is a 5-story building filled with vendors ready to sell you silk (duh), cashmere, jewelry, luggage, clothing, and on and on and on. The vendors are fairly aggressive and haggling is the norm here. As an example, I looked at a small hand painted silk scroll that “cost” 260Y (about $45); I eventually bought it for 50Y. After tolerating as much haggling as we could take and spending as much money as we were comfortable spending, we were ready for dinner. And as much as I loved the food in China, I seriously, totally, utterly, and completely missed cheese. We decided to satisfy that craving by splurging for pizza for dinner. It actually didn’t have as much cheese on it as an American pizza would have, but it totally hit the spot.
Getting Chinese Students Drunk
We had two social/celebratory gatherings with the Chinese students towards the end of the course. The first one was a party where there would be food, music, and alcohol, but it was also supposed to be a kind of exchange of cultural entertainment: the Chinese students were going to show us some stuff and we were supposed to show them some stuff. As a group, we were a little stumped about what “American entertainment” we could put together, especially on such short notice. We settled on singing a few songs, putting on a skit or two, and drinking games. The drinking games were THE hit of the party. I have never seen more enthusiastic and excited Flip Cup players ever.
Goodbye Dinner with the Chinese Students
On the next to last night of the course, we had a goodbye dinner and gift exchange with the Chinese students. We had brought vet school T-shirts, etc. to give to them and they gave us various Chinese good luck favors. We had a huge and yummy multi-course dinner served family style on a big Lazy Susan at each table. It was very nice to spend some more social time with the Chinese students and very sad to be winding down our time left in China.
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