Over halfway

I'm sitting here in "comptoirs du France", a little French patisserie blogging while waiting for my panini and fresh watermelon juice. I've set out today just wandering around a bit. I found the Russian area.. 

China or Russia? Who knows! May as well have stepped into Moscow. 

And a beautiful park, ritan park, which is very Chinese and peaceful to wander through

Now that I'm more than halfway through my adventure here, a few things I've learned:

1. How to cross an 8 lane street, against the signal, safely (cars and bikes don't, and aren't expected to yield to pedestrians)

2. In a pinch, a bakery is somewhere to get yummy and safe food

3. For a culture that doesn't much like sweets, they make everything that isn't supposed to be sweet cloyingly sweet. Meat. Tomatoes. Bread. You name it, it has a ton of sugar in it! 

4. In a restaurant, you flag the waiter over to order, to pay, if you want anything. There's always a ton of staff however they are REALLY good at not making eye contact so that they don't have to come over and help you.

5. A Chinese department store is basically a store with many mini stores of different brands in it. You'll mostly find that here. Not too many "western style" malls

6. The seasons here are very distinct. When I arrived it was Summer. 40 degrees plus, smog, humidity, rain showers, thunderstorms, gross. The past week, it's autumn, so mid to high 20's, sunny, clear skies. Wonderful. September is the month to be here! 

7. The subway is a great way to get around. Even in rush hour. Just be prepared to use your elbows. Biking is better though.

Now for the TMI portion:

8. There is an abundance of public toilets around, in various states of cleanliness. Enter at your own risk. Oh, and they're usually squatty potties (hole in the ground, you put your feet on either side). Handicap stalls have western style toilets but trust me, based on cleanliness, you'd rather use the hole. 

9. Starbucks napkins are amazing. They come in handy for everything from wiping the sweat off your face to using as TP. You're welcome :-D

Now I'm going to go enjoy my lunch and continue my wanderings..

Great Wall

Yesterday I was underwhelmed by Beijing. Well today I was suitably impressed. 

I joined a tour, which turned out to be myself, a Brit, and an American couple, along with a guide who took us up hiking on one of the unrestored sections of the Great Wall. It was about a 2.5 hour drive out of BJ and then we hiked along trails and on top of the wall itself for much of the 10k hike. The section I was at, Guobeikou, is compared to a snaking dragon. It was very steep up to the guard towers at some points, and we were also hiking along parts of the wall that were in such disrepair that the trail was only about 2 feet wide with a steep drop on either side. I'm so glad I decided to do a hike instead of the touristy parts of the wall. It would be cool to see some of the restored parts, but it i don't get out to the wall again, this was an amazing experience. AND it was some of the clearest weather in a long time. With the zoom lens on my camera you could follow the wall as far as the eye could see...

Pics taken at the same time of my vantage point from one of the towers...

I can't wait to get home and see all my pictures from the hike today.. It was a great day! 

Oh, and remember that bike tour I did? I have some pics from that too :)

(Bell tower)

(Forbidden city)

(I love how my bright colours stand out against everything else)

(National arts centre)

Temple of Heaven

Today after work I went to see the Temple of Heaven. It's a Unesco Heritage Site and really old and a really nice park and green space. 

Purdy isn't it? 

From on top of the steps there you have a pretty good vantage of what is the sprawl of BJ. It's nice. It's peaceful. It's really old. It's a temple. Frankly after all the hype (some of my coworkers say its their favourite place in BJ?!) I'm kind of underwhelmed. Sorta like how I feel about a lot of aspects of this city! It's all good. 

In the morning I'm heading to the wall for a hike on some of the restored and unrestored sections. It should be really great, nice and sunny :) 

And here's a picture of another random dog: 

Oh and cookies:

Olympic park

Tonight after work I grabbed a quick bite and headed up to the must-see Olympic park! Boy am I glad I did! 

Like so many other Olympic venues that came before, it is pretty much now unused, sitting, a shadow of its' former days. Apparently sometimes the birds nest is used for events and the water cube is in fact a water park, so that's something. Otherwise it's a big open space with random vendors, photographers trying to get you to buy posed pictures in front of the venues, food vendors, random open air karaoke screens, old ladies dancing all choreographed with fans, random random random.

Good news is its China, there's millions of people, and this place will never be fully devoid of tourists. 

These are the key sites. I have a ton of pics on the camera, of course. And a few videos of some of the freaky stuff I saw that I will have to figure out a way to post somehow...

I can't fully explain the weirdness that I experienced tonight, and even pictures wouldn't do it justice. But I'm glad I experienced more of weird and wonderful BJ! 

Speaking of weird and wonderful: COTD

Buckwheat seaweed cookies. If you took the seaweed off, these were actually pretty tasty. 

 

Status quo

Not much to report here! 

Keeping busy with work and other activities. For example, Monday after work I went for a massage, yesterday for a manicure and pedicure... It's very difficult here in BJ ;) 

In all honesty though, this week I'm missing home a bit. The novelty has worn off, I'm sick of being careful what I eat and thus eating a very small amount of fresh fruit/veg, a large amount of bread and rice and cheese... not to mention I'm sure the "beef" I had for dinner last night was donkey - at least I hope it was something as innocuous as donkey! (I was hungry, I ate it. I'm still here.) But I'm sure that's just a passing feeling because as of this weekend I've only got 3 weeks left and really have to hit the sights and experiences hard. 

Not a lot of pics to share. I've been a few interesting places (like the HUGE Chinese supermarket today) but haven't necessarily been able to whip out the iPad to take a pic (fun fact: they really don't like people taking pictures in stores and stuff. I've been asked/gestured at several times to put the camera/iPad away). 

And for those who considered this tl;dr, here's some cookies:

Puppy hiding in the grass 

Oops sorry for waking you! 

China...? Or anywhere else in North America that serves "Mexican" food?

Back to the "grind"

After a busy weekend of touristing and shopping and melting (shanghai was HOT!), I'm back in Beijing and ready for another week of work :) 

Shanghai was an amazing city. More cosmopolitan than Beijing, i liked it a lot more. I've decided Beijing is more like LA (sprawling, not really and centre to it), whereas Shanghai feels more like NYC. It has a cool energy and vibe to it. Not to mention an amazing skyline and tons to see! I would ramble all about it but frankly I'm not sure you're too interested... I'd need pictures fully explain what I saw and did but All my Shanghai pics are on my actual camera so sadly I'm not going to be posting them here (maybe when I'm back in a month). 

Instead, you get random food. 

Reads "apple breast" .. Hmmm,

Bag of random Chinese happiness (and my m&ms)

Avril Lavigne. On my ice tea juice box. I don't get it. 

Starting week 3 tomorrow. Time is flying!

Train to shanghai in pictures

After work today me and my friend made our way to the train station, en route to Shanghai. 5 short hours later we're in a cool, more metropolitan city than Beijing. I think it's going to be a good weekend!!!!

Some pics from the train station first : it's massive 

Doesn't even do it justice 

Awesome shoes 

People EVERYWHERE 

Very fast train! 

Only 300 km/h. Nbd

Awesome first class "meal" 

COTD: green onion cookie rolls (ick)

I'm still here!

Been busy at work and busy in the evenings. Not venturing far this past few nights but today off to Shanghai on the high sped train! Will have more to report on Sunday! 

Very good dinner - pineapple rice in a pineapple

Jo Louis?

Random and some more random

So it's Tuesday. Things ate going well at work. The one thing that is awesome is that there's always food! Someone seems to bring in treats every day. Last week there was cookies, brownies, chips, some random chinese candies to try.. and then we had a meeting today and there was pie, cookies, fruit, popcorn and chips! All for a half hour meeting! People really know how to keep spirits up and staff motivated here, I've got to say! Maybe I should implement that for my unit. On second thought, we'd all be fat. Never mind. 

It was a bit polluted and a bit rainy tonight so we just went to buy train tickets after work, then back to relax for the evening. A few things though:

I'm in the photo for perspective. Bigasstruck. And oh so random. 

This puppy and his friend that ill post of pic of later are the best ever. I walk by them twice a day to and from work and they just sit around chilling and playing. They had a bath yesterday and were all fluffy and cute. I stopped to take a photo today and I could have sworn they were going to follow me home. SO CUTE!! (I miss my puppy :(:()

COTD

Annd just because: my awesome fruit bowl :)

COTD apparently means "car" today

I'm still working on my blog post from my bike tour, even though I don't even know that it will be that long. I don't want your expectations to be too high! 

Just a few things seen tonight between dinner, walking around, and getting a lovely foot massage while my friend got a pedicure :

Crabs, turtles, fishes, etc. to give with your bouquet of flowers... ?

Bike Beijing!

As promised here's a bit of a recap of my bike tour that I took yesterday. 

Crowds. Asian people. History. 

Ok I'm done. 

...

No but really, it was great. Biking is absolutely a great way to get around and dodge some of the crazy crowds at the sights, especially on a beautiful day with very little pollution. I started out getting myself absolutely turned around coming out of the subway and going in the opposite direction from where I was supposed to. Whoops. Note to self: if the directions say to take exit C, take exit C, not exit E figuring I can find my way because you will not be able to find exit C, blocks and blocks over, obscured by buildings. #rookie mistake ;)

(I must be a true blogger now, I'm using hash tags. Or something) 

Once I found my way to the bike shop, I met Alan, my private tour guide for the day. I didn't pay more for a private tour, there was just no one else who signed up at that time. Score! We started out biking through the Hutongs while Alan told me about the history of people living there. I won't bore you with all the details but it was really neat, and excellent to better understand some of the history behind the residents of beijing. 

(Too many words, too few pictures. I know. I was on a bike)

The way older Beijingers who live in the Hutongs work out. Venice beach this is not. 

After cycling around the lake area that I had visited the previous day, seeing more of it since I was more mobile, we went towards the forbidden city and tiennamen square. 

We didn't actually enter the palace or the square, and I was happy with that. This was a perfect way to see over people and dodge around them and hit them with my bike if they got in my way (oops, inside thought). Ill go on a weeknight after work to see these things when it's less insane. 

We also saw the national theatre which was built as a part of the Olympic thing and is basically empty. Fun fact about "the egg" though: it has no doors! 

After 3 hours cycling around on the bike, the tour was over and I was ready for some air conditioning and retail therapy! The shopping did not go well. The malls and stores here are interesting. You seem to either have super high end stuff or you have forever 21 and Zara and a few other western stores, and the fake stuff at the markets that you barter for. There doesn't seem to be a lot of stuff in the middle (which makes sense considering a middle class is kind of a new thing here.) 

That's enough writing. Ill leave you with 

(I don't think I posted these yet... Not seen on my tour but still cookies!)

Week 2 COTD

Dutch Stoopwaffles

Yup. Course there's Stoopwaffles in china! ......

I'm really tired and kind of sunburnt after my adventures today. Perhaps when I wake up ill write about my adventures today. But had a good time, decided that biking around Beijing is an awesome way to get around and avoid the crowds a bit, that there's too many people here, and that the shopping kind of sucks (unless you are interested in designer stuff or cheap knockoffs... wheres the happy middle ground?!) I shall expand on all of those points (and more!) ASAP! 

Right now though, bed is calling my name 

(No I don't make my bed... That's what the maid service is for!)

Catching up on the COTD

Since I missed a few days this week, here's 3 for the price of 1:

These were awesome. Oreo you redeemed yourself after those horrible peach/grape ones earlier this week! (Which ill admit I still ate the whole box of... They are still cookies. It's a sickness, I know)

And then there was these that were another head scratcher:

(Reads "sweet wife cakes")

("Salty husband cakes")