Way to go, Beavis!

On Thursday, Charlie and I were hoping to travel by train to Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius.  At some point we also had Shaolin, home of the kung fu monks, on the itinerary, but that was cut when we realized we had a bit of a time constraint.  We didn't really care whether we went to Qufu or Shaolin or anywhere else for that matter; we just wanted to take a train to see China from the ground.  Tony put me in contact with a travel agent named Bevis (not a joke) to help with arranging the train travel and hotel accommodations since Charlie and I are completely Mandarin challenged and would have had a hell of a time with any of this.  Even the train schedule website is completely in Chinese with no English option. I guess it would have paid to study a little more Mandarin before I came. Anyway, I got an e-mail from Bevis early Thursday morning telling me that the hotel is no problem but that train tickets needed to be booked 10 days in advance.  That pretty much blows the trip out the window.

Instead, Charlie and I made our way down to Lady's Street.  No, this is not Beijing's red light district. We have yet to stumble upon that jewel, if it even exists.  Lady's Street is a gigantic market full of everything you can imagine - clothes, electronics, housewares, plants, pet fish, etc. - but it is laid out like Pike Place in Seattle.  Part of it is on the street, part of it is underground, and it extends a couple blocks in every direction. On our way there we passed by the U.S. embassy, which had a line out the door and down the block for visa appointments, and found an opportunistic street vendor selling jian bing.  Charlie has been looking for jian bing ever since we arrived in China and it turns out it has been a block away from our house the whole time.

Jian bing is kind of like a crepe.  It is made by pouring an eggy batter onto a griddle, on top of which is spread a thick, salty soy-flavored sauce, followed by some thin sheets of crunchy tofu and a little bit of cilantro.  Then it is folded up like an envelope and served hot.  They were huge and filling (I think I'll get one for breakfast tomorrow) and only cost about $0.50 USD.  I enjoyed it thoroughly.

A boy and his jian bing

We continued on to Lady's Street, which was just opening at that time, and wandered around for a while.

 Main entrance

We were on a mission to find some large, deep noodle bowls, similar to the asymmetrical ones we used in Luoyang, but none of the hundreds we looked at met our specifications.  Instead, we bought some thick, colorful glasses that I will hopefully not be able to break (unlike the ones they are replacing).

My favorite part of Lady's Street were all the pet stalls.  They apparently specialize in just a few types of adorable baby animals: turtles and other small lizards, bunnies, chicks, ducklings, and hamsters.  I wanted to adopt them all.  There were several types of other small birds and one robin-sized black bird with a long orange beak that said "ni hao!" when we approached.

Having seen enough, we headed back home to try to figure out how to get to one of the wet markets nearby.  At first, Charlie ventured out on his own, my feet too pissed off to participate, but he took a long detour to a cigar store across town and then came right back.  Luckily, that gave me some time to actually figure out where we should go and find it on the map.  We chose a wet market (an open food market with fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, fish and other goods) that was fairly close to home and walked there, braving the traffic on one of the busiest roads in the city.  When we arrived I was reminded of just how much I love this sort of thing.  There was dead animal carcass everywhere, yet somehow it smelled great and looked scrumptious.  The fruits and veggies were brightly colored and stacked to the ceiling.  There were fresh noodles and Chinese pastries, spices, nuts, a whole stall devoted solely to mushrooms, and some of the freshest seafood you could ever ask for (some of it was still alive!)

We did a quick walk-through to scope out everything that was available and get some ideas, as Charlie had been put in charge of dinner for the evening.  We decided to go with a fresh shrimp pasta with veggies and a salad and strawberries for dessert.  As we passed by each stall, the vendors would shout a friendly "ni hao" at us and try to offer us various items on display in their stall.  We made one lady's day by buying a grocery bag full of vegetables from her and then continued on to pick up noodles, fruit, eggs and some giant prawns from a few other folks.  When all was said and done, we had spent about ¥150 (about $20) and had several pounds of produce and a couple pounds of fresh shrimp.  If only food could be so fresh and so cheap in the States!

Once we had finished, we grabbed a taxi home and found ourselves with one of the funniest taxi drivers ever.  Once we had established that there was no way we were going to understand each other using spoken language, he began to communicate with long, sing-song hmmmmmms interspersed with snippets of Mandarin and would give us a thumbs up and a smile in the rear view mirror to say he understood.  So far, he is the only driver who has ever managed to actually get us all the way back to our building without considerable confusion.  As we exited the taxi, we gave him a nice tip and expressed our gratitude using the few Mandarin phrases we knew, to which he responded "Thank you!" in English.

We hauled our edible bounty up to the apartment and Chef Charlie set to the task of making dinner.

Working on a sweet and tangy reduction for the strawberry dessert

After a wonderful meal of salad with quail eggs, a kind of shrimp primavera (except with Chinese noodles), and strawberries with a sweet, balsamic glaze, we headed out to Gingko Restaurant and Bar for NUKABB's open mic night. NUKABB stands for "North America and UK Association of Blacks in Beijing" and they organize many cultural events around the city.

Once we arrived at the restaurant, we were greeted by Tony's colleague, Kathy, with whom we had had dinner at Pure Lotus a couple nights ago.  We all made our way to the upper floor so that we could smoke cigars without pissing too many people off.  This also proved to be a great vantage point for people watching.

I just wanted to share the sign that they have posted in one of the stalls in the ladies room:

You might think these things are just common sense.  But trust me, after seeing a few of the public toilets here in China, these instructions are VERY necessary.

These are two of my favorite performances of the evening:

Kevin "K.O." Olusola, an American student studying in Beijing, who also happens to be a master cellist.

Kevin performs with Kor Element, another American performer living in Beijing.

Check these guys out.  They really were fantastic.

Kevin "K.O." Olusola on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kevin-KO-Olusola/231020898282?v=wall#!/pages/Kevin-KO-Olusola/231020898282

Kor Element: http://www.reverbnation.com/korelement