How do you eat a starfish?

From Beijing_FoodWalk005

I didn't even know you could eat a starfish! More on that in the Wangfujing Street Market section of this post...

These days I'm juggling two lives; my travel life with Jenny here in China is literally exploding everyday - new experiences, scenes, people, almost every hour is something different requiring so much thinking and interacting and navigating that we are exhausted by the end of the day, and overwhelmed most of the time with all five senses on full blast. My other life, my 'mistress' Jenn calls her, is this blog. And juggling how to share what we are experiencing with our friends and family is also exciting and new, but just like writing technical manuals, or teaching English classes, I never really seem to catch up!! Ignoring the cost of internet here at the Marriott (Grrrr!), here is what we've been doing since we got here to Beijing.

We had to hit the big stuff first; Tian'an Men Square, the Forbidden City, the Terra Cotta Warriors, the Great Wall...living here is teaching us to adjust our expectations so we are learning to be really, truly flexible. Like when we open a menu after a long morning to find no English or pictures and we've been looking for this restaurant for three hours, or we have to stop everything and find an electrical outlet so we can recharge the camera battery (Doh!), or we end up spending twice what food is worth because we don't haggle hard enough, or we get mauled in the street by homeless begging children so desperate for money we have to physically pry them loose, or we discover that we have to take a ten hour train ride to Xian to see the Terra Cotta Army (we decided not to), we are learning to plan when we can but expect the unexpected...always.

Click the blue underlined titles below to go the pictures and videos...

Tian'an Men Square

From Beijing_Tian'anSquare

This famous architectural complex is even bigger in real life than the images we've all seen on CNN. If it wasn't for it's gory history it would have been much like walking the Mall in Washington D.C.; government buildings on the left and right and throngs of tourists and locals in the middle snapping pictures of statues and flags and Red Army Soldiers on post. My favorite part is the huge portrait of Mao overlooking the football fields of concrete and monuments. Overall it was enjoyable, but sterile, although the Red Army soldiers are good sports and if you catch them at the right time they can be quite photogenic.

Forbidden City

From Beijing_ForCity002

The Forbidden City is at the top of the Square, all we had to do was continue walking as they are connected by the portrait of Mao. The crowds got thick at the entrance and remained heavy throughout along with dozens of locals hawking everything from keyfobs to personally guided tours. It was very Disneyesque but considering it's stature in Chinese importance, we expected as much. Overall, it is building after building of pageantry and exquisite royal sophistication and I was thankful all of the city is now open to us. We were awed at every turn, every glance up or down, and by the time we got through the entire complex we were looking for a taxi so we could head back and simply crash - it was overwhelming, but gorgeous.

New Year's Eve
Our new year's eve was the usual chaos and craziness we always go through because we both love celebrating new year's so we try to find the best place to get the most from the occasion as we can and Chinese New Years did not disappoint. Our hotel found a reservation for us (a day before!) at a recommended Chinese restaurant that also had a floor show. We were amazed by not only the dinner, but we watched an acrobat, a dancer with a dozen different masks that magically appeared out of thin air, a magician, and a beautiful girl who played a traditional Chinese instrument that everybody has heard when you eat at any Chinese restaurant (except here in China!)..it was all fantastic and everybody was enjoying the new year's eve with us, and us with them. Xin Yiang Hau!! (Happy New Year)

From China Videos

After two false starts at bars we could have fallen asleep in, we rushed back to the bar street, Sanlitun Lu, and a few hours before midnight the city began to erupt as if going to war. I can't describe the noise and deafing chaos but it was like nothing we had ever seen - take every fireworks display you've seen and throw them all into the middle of the street, with traffic still going strong, and you've got Chinese New Year. I took so many videos we used up our memory because words can't do it justice - amazing fun!!

WangFujing Street

From Beijing_FoodWalk005

It's joked that the Chinese will eat anything and I'd say that's a fair assessment. I'd seen the street market on National Geographic so we thought we knew what to expect, but as usual we were stunned at what the Chinese people consider haute cuisine. From pancakes, to beetles, to snakes, to starfish - the street market made us gag, and laugh, and feel like we had truly seen some of authentic China this evening...I had some veal, some dumplings, and some eel, and Jenn had some BubbleTea, but that was all we could manage considering our stomachs are not 100% in the first place. Oh, and you eat a starfish after a cook flash fries it for you and puts it on a stick and you just eat it like a lollipop!

Beijing Nightlife
We put up some more videos of nightlife around these parts, and I've managed to find an editor so they are shorter and filled with more high-quality entertainment now!

The Great Wall

From Beijing_Wall006

Coming soon, more text to describe our day of climbing the Great Wall of China...till then, take a look at the pics!! - it was so amazing I will post that experience asap...

Peace, and Xing Yiang Hau!! (Happy New Year)