Pictures from the last week

Here are a few select photos from the past week:

1. I think this picture was missing from my previous post. This is the deep fried mushroom, eggplant and kung pao tofu dishes we had in Beijing.

2. "Suzhou street" at the Summer palace in Beijing. They charged admission and we didn't end up going - we figured we would be seeing Suzhou in person pretty soon so it wasn't needed.

3. A view across the lake at the Summer palace. This was a stunning view on a hot day, and we relaxed and took it all in for a while.

4. Another view of the same structure from a long bridge covered in dragon and other animal statues.

5. The "all you can drink" beer selection at the buffet in Xi'an. There was also a fridge of cold beer available. In China it seem to be more common to drink things which aren't chilled, as they always ask if you want cold or warm beer.

6. At the same buffet. There are live eels in the bowl on the right, and you move them to the left hand side where you can boil them before taking it to your table. The same thing was available with live crabs - and we saw several people with live ones at their tables trying to escape.

7. This is the south gate to the wall around Xi'an. After paying admission you can go through and access the stairs to the top where bike are available to rent.

8. A view from the north side of the wall as we biked around. This side was full of floats and things that looked like they were used (or to be used) for a celebration.

9. Us with a real live Terra-cotta warrior at the bottom of the Xi'an south gate.

10. Amy and her panda friend are finally together.

11. In Chengdu, this is one of the squares where there will likely be national day celebrations today.

12. I have my ears cleaned by long metal rods at Jinli street in Chengdu. We were told it felt amazing by a girl ahead of us but I beg to differ.

13. The intro singing at the Sichuan opera last night.

14. Part of a comedy act - which was fully in Chinese. I got weird looks from an English speaking family sitting next to us when I laughed at some of the jokes. A lot of it was in the Sichuan dialect though which made it quite hard to follow for us (as it is basically a totally different language).

熊猫 Research Base

Yesterday we woke up early and made our way to the Panda research base which is about 20km North of our hotel. This research center is quite large and is home to many pandas of all ages. Jackie Chan even adopted two here for 1 million yuan. They seem to treat the pandas well and we liked how close you could get to them.

These two guys were trying to get to the other side for bamboo. One took the short way through the bars and the other climbed over the top in acrobatic fashion. We have a video of that somewhere.

Amy had been looking forward to meeting a panda for a long time. Fortunately this is one of the only places in the world where this is possible. She paid a pretty penny but had two minutes with a young panda on her lap. They took lots of photos and videos and Amy left with a smile on her face. I'll try and post those later.

The Panda center also is home to a large population of red pandas, which are basically red raccoons. After half a day with the 熊猫 (bear cats) we headed into town for some ramen lunch.

Today we got a late start since we aren't feeling too well. We asked at front desk for a nice Sichuan restaurant nearby and it did not disappoint. This was the fanciest place we have been to in China - the service was great. They started off by giving us two fruit plates, some edamamme, and a spicy pork dish.

We ordered Kungpao Chicken (we've had this a lot but it's an authentic Sichuan dish so we had to try it here), Dandan Mian (a pasta like noodle dish with pork), spicy wontons, and a mushroom clay pot. The mushroom dish was rated two peppers spicy - potentially out of our comfort zone.

When it came, it was a noodle soup with mushroom slices. I thought it was fantastic - but most definitely spicy. Amy liked it too but found it a little too hot so I finished most of it.

At the end we were so impressed with the service we tried to tip but they refused. Ahhh China. Here is the web site: http://www.yinxing.com - Chengdu Gingko Restaurant.

It was 3:30 already so we wandered over to an ancient street that was very impressive. It was full of bars, tea houses, restaurants and shops. The weirdest thing was the street side ear cleaning. It takes about 5-10 minutes and costs 20 yuan ($3). While you sit in a chair a guy with a headlamp cleans your ears with a bunch of tools. I'll post pictures of this later since it will be easier to understand. Amy and I both did it and our ears are now spic and span.

We had dinner in the area and after running 3km we made it to the Sichuan opera show on time (but exhausted). If only we had found a taxi. The show was more like a variety show with all kinds of Sichuan acts - music, comedy, tricks and most impressively the famous changing of faces and clothes. We stared in awe as performers masks and clothes changed before we could blink. I have no idea how they do it but we left the show fascinated. This is a must do while in Chengdu.

Tomorrow is the start of National Day in China (this is a weeklong holiday for most of China. We plan to watch the fireworks display from the rooftop of our hotel. Should be exciting!

Happy National Day!

邮局 vs 游戏

This blog was originally about language learning. Here's a post that revisits that.

One of the biggest language mistakes I've been making so far is one that has been following me since I started learning Mandarin. An early addition to my vocabulary was 邮局 (post office). In all of my pimsleur lessons I could never remember this.

Well it's caught up to me a bit. There's another word (游戏) which means "game". They aren't too similar - both the tone and the sound for the second character are different, however I've said the wrong thing twice.

Situation One - Trying to borrow Jenga from the hostel bar in Xi'an:

Me: 你们有没有邮局？ (Do you guys have a post office here?)
Bartender: huh?

Situation Two - we were at an arcade and the skeeball machine ate our tokens. I had to go find an attendant.

Me: 请问，在那边一个邮局坏了你可以看一看？ (excuse me, over there a post office is broken can you come take a look?)

I need to get these two words sorted out. I think I'll learn from the two mistakes.

Today I got a haircut. I just kept pointing and saying shorter here. It seemed to work out but it reminded me that I have a lot to learn.

Sichaun Hot Pot (四川火锅)

We have now made our way to Chengdu in the Sichuan province. This city is a breath of fresh air. So far it seems cleaner and more organized, although part of that may be our nice hotel room.

After we got settled in from our trip, we headed out for dinner. One of the Sichuan specialties is hot pot. We had tried hot pot in Beijing but it didn't compare to the place we went to tonight. This restaurant claimed to be Chongqing inspired but we don't really know the difference.

Hot pot itself is quite simple. You just take raw veggies, meat, seafood, etc and boil them in your own pot until it is cooked. The guide book said the two things that make a hot pot place good are the sauce and the broth.

In Beijing the sauce came from a packet and was ok but nothing special. Today we got to make our own sauces from a self serve area. Mine had oil, peanuts, black pepper sauce, vinegar, some chillies and a bunch of other things. We each made two different sauces. The cooked food is dipped into the sauce before you eat it.

Here's all of the food we ordered. There's a big mushroom plate, potatoes, shrimp balls, crab, lettuce, and tofu. We went kind of light on the meat as there are some pretty interesting choices available.

Now the broth. You can choose between some plain (ie not spicy) options like chicken, vegetable or beef stock. Amy tried the Chicken one. Sichaun is known for the spicy food so I had the lowest spicy broth. This was a recommendation by several people before hand - the lowest level of spice is still insanely hot. As you can see from the picture it is a very red oily broth. It was delicious but I did shed a few tears. I think I lost weight from sweating too. I don't know if I'll be able to try the middle level of spice while we are here.

My pot cooking some Tofu and mushrooms. After this meal I see why hot pot is so popular! We will have to try and do it again while still sampling the other Sichaun cuisine.

We came to Chengdu with the intention of seeing (and meeting) some pandas. Tomorrow we will try to do that by heading north to one of the panda sanctuaries here. Amy is really looking forward to this so we may spend two days at different places to see the pandas. I'll write about our 熊猫 encounters as they happen.

谢谢你们告诉我生日快了！Thanks for the Birthday wishes.

The safest place in China

在中国，最安全的地方是在公共汽车上。如果你走路的话，每个开车人无所谓。他们开车很快。我觉得开车人觉得他们比走路人好。如果你在公共汽车，一个车不可以打你。我们很高兴在中国没有车。

The safest place to be in China is on a bus. If you are walking - no one stops for you. Bikes don't stop. Cars don't stop. This is the opposite of what happens in Canada.

To cross the street you need to spot a gap and make a run for it. Or you can get enough people together that you can force cars to stop. This rarely works as you need a LOT of people. Sometimes they will honk but usually they will pretend you aren't there at all and just expect you to move.

I think I've seen hundreds of cases where people have nearly been hit or fully run over by busses, taxis, cars and bicycles. But no incidents.

It seems to be madness but beneath it all there is some kind of order (I'm starting to get a feel for it). It's extremely dangerous and chaotic. But somehow it works. People get where they need to go quickly.

I still can't help but think that with some order it would be more efficient and a little safer. Then again maybe I'm wrong.

Missing photos

Here are a few photos from my iPhone (this is much easier than using public computers to upload pics):

Part of the terra-cotta warrior army. This is from the first pit with over 1000 warriors excavated.

More warriors in pit one.

Close-up of more warriors.

Tonight we went to a KTV place for some karaoke. Actually there are quite a few here in xi'an. We ran into at least four while looking for a place to eat dinner.

We finally settled on one and sang karaoke for three hours. This is three hours more karaoke than I've done in my life. The above picture is from the tv in the room we had while singing "hero" by Enrique. Strange choice of video.

Overall it was a fun experience. The service was great and you could hear tons of other people singing loudly in the other rooms. This is a much more popular past time than I'd originally thought.

The dinner we had was at a new Taiwanese restaurant. The family that owned it just moved here about three months ago. The food was delicious. I especially liked the yansuji (salty peppery chicken). If this was any indication of what Taiwan would be like the I'm quite excited.

We've almost covered all of Xi'an so tomorrow we will probably check out a goose pagoda and some more stuff in the muslim quarter before going for dinner. Tuesday we fly to Chengdu!

We are both looking forward to a nice hotel and lots of sichaun food.

Terra-cotta Warriors in Xi'an

Here are some more updates now that we are on our third day in Xi'an.

 

Yesterday we rented a double-person bike and rode around the city wall of Xi'an. It's elevated by about 10-15 meters, and I think around 18km in length. We biked the whole thing in about 1:40. It was some much needed exercise. For lunch we ate at a small restaurant in the Muslim quarter. We had 3 dishes and 2 bottles of water for 40 kuai. In the evening we found another small restaurant and had some new dishes - deep fried eggplant, and some spicy green beans (stir fried). Of course - we also had Gongbaojiding (Kung pao Chicken). We've had some form of that dish almost every day (either Chicken, Shrimp or Tofu).

 

Today we took the bus out to see the Terra-cotta warriors. The tours were supposed to be 180+ each but we took the bus for 14 round trip and paid our own entry - a much cheaper option. This site had thousands of warrior statues that were from the Qin dynasty and were uncovered by accident by some farmers about 30 years ago. The first "pit" had well over 1000, inclding some horses and chariots. It was quite cool.

 

Tonight we are thinking of heading to a KTV place (for some Karaokee). We'll see how that goes!

 

There are computers here so we can upload + resize pictures, but it's unbearably slow for now I'll limit it to a few pictures:

 

1. Some dishes from a Sichuan restaurant in Beijing. Clockwise - Deepfried mushrooms, Spicy eggplant, Kung Pao Tofu

 

2. The city wall we rode around in Xi'an. There were some decorations on one side of the wall.

 

3. The hutong district of Beijing. This is where all the bars are that the foreigners drink at. Lots of restaurants too.

 

4. Careful!

 

5. One area of Beihai park. We rented boats here on the lake.

 

6. A view of the main pagoda of Beihai park from our boat. It was really peaceful out there.

 

That's all for now. Maybe more pictures next time when I can find a better computer.

On to Xi'an

Getting to Xi'an was a bit of a challenge. Everything went fairly smoothly until we landed at the airport. We had to take a bus to the city center for an hour and when we got there there was a downpour of rain and we had no idea how to get to the hostel.

We wandered around for a while and eventually found a starbucks where we could use wifi. We were wrong about where we were headed and a guy on the street eventually helped us out. If we couldn't speak mandarin we would be lost!

The hostel is nice and seems to have a lot of personality. There is a bar here and we get free beer each night (but it's cheap anyway - we have been buying 600ml bottles for 4 kuai which is about 70 cents.

Tonight we went for a buffet dinner which to say the least was a rollercoaster ride of emotions. It was 48 kuai each (8$) and had everything from hot pot to salads to live crab and eel. We have pictures and video of the latter. The cleanliness left much to be desired. There was a guy with an unbuttoned shirt. The floors were filthy. A waiter cleaned the table with a squeegee and dirty towel. Most disturbingly - after we picked up some desert cakes a staff member took the cake tongs and dipped them in a bucket of dirty water under the counter. She then wiped it with a dirty rag that probably cleaned the tables and put the tongs back out. We tried the cakes anyway but they weren't that good. If we get sick we know why :)

The best part of this restaurant was the all you can drink beer - 600ml each. Amy has a good pic of this display.

Last night we went for dinner with two of my former colleagues from Beijing. We had what can only be described as a feast with a huge variety of delicious food. They also brought us a box of moon cakes for the spring festival. During the day we went to the summer palace which was also great. I'll post more pics when we use a computer next.

For now here are a few from my phone:

Breakfast on the way to Beijing.

A questionable sign at a nice supermarket.

New flavours of pringles. We had the crab ones. Weird but definitely taste like crab.

A sign for urinal cleanliness. Translates to "one step forward is a big step for our culture".

They fed us on the plane today. Beer was free. It was budweiser which was weird. I translated an article in a Chinese newspaper.

Some observations

Here are some things we've noticed so far:

 

- There is a diaper shortage in China (or just a reluctance to use them). Many young kids have but-less pants on, and the parents just let them do their business wherever they need to.

 

- Everyone deserves to be first in line. No one queues properly in China - they just budge ahead of you. You have to really elbow your way through to get what you need. For example, yesterday we were ordering lunch and a guy tried to cut in front of Amy twice before yelling his order from behind. We yelled back at him and he shut up for a while.

 

- There are a lot of imitations here. We've found fake versions of nearly everything (books, DVDs, clothes, etc). And we've bought quite a few to bring back. The knock-offs are very easy to spot, usually with quite hilarious English.

 

- Tours are subsidized by the government. Our "Great wall and Ming Tombs" tour the other day was about 2 hours at those places, and 4 hours at government Jade, Silk and Tea shops where you had to sit in the gift shop for 40 minutes.

 

- Squat toilets are unpleasant. Nothing further needed here...

 

Did the pictures I posted last time work? We've done a lot since I wrote last.

 

On Monday we met up with a friend from Vancouver (Paul) who joined us as we went to the Fortinet Beijing office. They treated us to a really good Sichuan lunch. We checked out some markets in the afternoon and then went for Peking Duck. I actually enjoyed it and we tried to go again last night to the famous restaurant but it was too busy.

 

On Tuesday we did our Great wall + Ming Tombs tour. The Great Wall is absoultely amazing and something everyone should do at least once. The only disappointing thing was that we didn't have enough time there. After our tour we checked out the Hutong district where all the foreigners drink and had dinner. There are some really nice lakes in that area (and throughout Beijing).

 

Yesterday we went to Beihai park which is huge! I don't know the exact size but it seemed much larger than Central Park. We rented a motor boat for 60 Yuan ($10) and drove around the lake for an hour and had some beer. The weather was nice so this was really relaxing. In the evening we met up with Paul again and had Sichuan dinner at our favourite local restaurant.

Today we are going to the Summer Palace to check it out. That should take up most of the day. In the evening we plan to meet up with two former Fortinet employees who live here for dinner. Then in the morning we fly out to Xi'an, leaving Beijing behind.

The Great Wall

We've done a lot in the past couple of days. I don't really have the time to write out much about it but here are a few pictures for now.

More pictures

And here are two more. It will be easier when we have a better computer to use and can resize the pictures. For now, this will be OK! Let me know if they worked.