798 Arts District

Lena and I went to the 798 Arts District this weekend, took some photos, and had an all around good day. Here is a slideshow of some of the art we saw:

It was a little bit of an adventure finding the place, as the bus number was different in each of our guidebooks, as well as the website of a gallery (it's the 401 from DongZhiMen, fyi).

Weekend Chalupas and the Zoo Market

This is a weekend Chalupa, as I call it. It's basically the Chinese Gordita plus a crispy rice center, and just a little bit more of all the ingredients, so it's bigger, crunchy, takes longer to make, and costs 3rmb instead of 2. I like the Chalupa better; Lena prefers the Gordita.
Also, here is an interesting find at the Zoo market: a Portland State "parkb and service" shirt. Way to make it international, PDX!

China's answer to the Gordita

I really do need to figure out what these are called, because they are my breakfast every morning. It's basically a crepe/pancake, brushed with egg + amazing mystery sauce + hot pepper, then folded and filled with diced onions and lettuce. It's insanely tasty and filling, and it's only 2rmb (~ 30 cents). It's going to be an eggy year for me.

…and sometimes you need spaghetti.

TAFI for the win! Fixed-price set menus let you put together a 5-course italian meal for 50rmb and pick the food you want. The wine is more like fruit juice, but tasty nonetheless, and the desserts are delicious! This is a must for anyone in the WDK area jonesin' for some pasta.
Next door is the intriguing and most excellently-named tasty-taste cake factory. Had we not just eaten cake and panna cotta, we would've tried this ourselves.


Also, here's some pictures of the oddly-mod street that leads to our apartment. It's kinda blurry, so it's hard to tell, but there is a traditional victory gate at the end there.

Because sometimes you need coffee...

Helen's Cafe is our favorite coffee spot. Their coffee is good (in Beijing terms, it's spectacular), cheap (10rmb), and you get a refill. It's free on Mondays, actually. It's pretty western, but that's good sometimes, especially for Beijing newcomers like us.
We also went to the Dazhongsi market today, which was a lot of fun, and we got a lot of the stuff we need. Highlights: extra-thick mattress pad (no more springs, yay!) and portable tea steepers. Lena also got some pretty excellent boots for 200rmb.

太poisonous了！

We made the obligatory trip to Wangfujing and Tiananmen square, but it was mega-crowded, so we didn't bother with the security checkpoint to get into the square. My big successes of the day were finding a tea shop, trying a lot of tea, and buying two cheap bags of tea we liked. Also, the sugar-glazed fruit on a stick is my favorite stick food. That opinion is pending my sampling the scorpions, but I think it will stand.


Visitor's note: you'll find a good variety of stuff at the Wangfujing snack street (pictures above), but it's all at least 3x overpriced. It's cheaper everywhere else in the city.

Chahlie, moy baaaaiiiby nooooooooar!

This is my favorite freebie that came with our apartment: a plate featuring a red panda, terrified that some butterflies are going to take his open bottle of wine. Reminds me of Uncle Dubs.

Confucius never wears black without the blue.

I went for a nice stroll through my campus today and learned a few things:
1) If you're a Chinese University, and you're going to erect a statue, you have to avoid one thing: anyone but Confucius. It'd be like building a statue in your Beatles fan clubhouse and making it Paul, John, or Ringo. (much love, George)
2) Being a scholarship student makes me, at least in the eyes of BLCU, a king amongst men. Queues? Not for this guy.
3) When your school's athletic facilities hosted the Paralympic Games, don't expect them to be free for students. Being a scholarship student won't help. Neither will having a super-famous Chinese name. Money might, but that's like paying a membership fee, and that's for suckers.
4) If the exercise yards (with their playground-like equipment) are good enough for the old comrades, they're good enough for me. When I get some pictures of this, you'll understand why I come back to the United States terribly out-of-shape.

t-plus one week

So I’ve been in China for about a week now (writing this sunday night), and I figure it’s about time I start putting some thoughts down. Currently, it sounds like Beijing is under siege, but that’s just the Lantern Festival – the end of the Chinese New Year celebration. People here love fireworks something fierce. You’d think, having invented them centuries (millennia?) ago, they’d be sick of them by now, but you’d be wrong; there have been smatterings of fireworks every day since we’ve been here, and it’s been pretty constant today since 8am. I’m not talking about bottle rockets, either – many of them set off nearby car alarms, and it seems like every few blocks there’s a kid with an arsenal that would put the DC July 4th show to shame. Fortunately, this all ends tonight. In the meanwhile, I’m just waiting for the climax.

Last Sunday: Flew out of Dulles, and really appreciated United’s service there. You know what I didn’t appreciate? JFK airport. Short for Just-Fucking-Kill me. In order to catch a connecting flight, you have to leave the terminal, board a train to another terminal, and go through security AGAIN. When I have to take off my belt in two airports in three hours, the terrorists have already won. “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of” indeed, Alicia Keys. Your airport is as busted as your grammar. Air China was fine, and the 13+ hour flight just zipped by. Oh, then it was Monday.

Monday: Arrived at 7pm-ish. Lena’s co-worker picked us up at the airport, brought us to our hostel and helped us buy cellphones. That was a nice touch, and I'm not ashamed to say that having a cellphone makes me feel a lot more comfortable here.

Tuesday: Lena was gone much of the day doing work stuff, so I had two goals: 1) Get an IC card (transit farecard), and 2) Find an apartment. #1 was easy, #2 was not. I got spooked by the first place I went, because it was very sketchy and I had all my valuables on me.

Wednesday: Found an apartment that I actually liked, showed it to Lena and she liked it, too. (Side note: When I say "found," I mean "was shown" and I also mean that I walked around for about 12 hours today. Lower back massacre. We ate lunch at a pretty solid Japanese place - big lunch for 60rmb (~$9). Still aiming cheaper.

Thursday: Lena had her demo lesson at her school today, and did great! They gave her the job on the spot. Also, we signed our lease and moved in. Slept on a bare mattress because stores aren't open very late here.

Friday: Registered at school, which was really quick and easy. Thanks to the scholarship, I got to skip most of the hours-long lines. Stipend won't be disbursed until later, of course. Went to La Bamba for dinner - 10rmb burritos and 5rmb beers until 7pm! Jackpot. Also, Wal-Mart was an odd little trip, but we outfitted pretty much our whole place for 700 rmb.

Saturday: Actually got to relax today. Helen's cafe had good coffee (with one free refill) and free wi-fi. Ran a couple errands after that and watched Julie&Julia. Charming movie, good night.

Sunday: All I got done was buying a 5-gallon jug of water. Tap water here is "safe" to drink but really heavy on the chemicals, so everyone drinks bottled water. I found a guy who will trade you a full one for an empty one AND deliver it, all for 12rmb. Since our apartment came with a 5g-jug-dispenser (with hot AND cold taps), I figured this was a no-brainer. Lots of ramen in the coming year, I think.

***END RECAP***

Thanks for reading the long first post! Further posts shouldn't be this long or dry, but people have been asking what I've been doing here and this is the short version.