The highlight of the last week or so was a visit from Truman, a friend I grew up with in Titusville, who was in town on business. Together, we visited several excellent restaurants in HouHai and Olympic Village and sampled Chinese beers in Sanlitun. We also toured the Forbidden City. The Palace Museum, as it is known today, is over 8 km long, running through the heart of modern Beijing. There are 9,999 palaces and halls totaling over 150K covered square meters. We didn't hit all of the rooms, but I'm pretty sure we went into at least a solid 1% of them. Truman, Mao and I took a picture together in Tian'anmen Square. We had the opportunity to watch the flag lowering ceremony in the Square. The precision of the soldiers was remarkable. And, as they were trying to prepare for the ceremony, they took their jobs of clearing the area quite seriously...we almost got yelled at. In fact, we might have but I didn't understand them!
By far the best meal we had was Peking Duck, a specialty here in Beijing. It may not be clear in the picture, but I'm holding half of a duck's head with my chopsticks. I proceeded to eat the duck's brain because it is considered a delicacy in China. Truman wouldn't look at me when I ate it, and I had to immediately wash it down with beer. I've never had brain before, so I had no frame of reference as to what brain should taste like. Strangely, it tasted like brain. I don't know how to explain that one without breaking off into a tangent on evolution and primal instincts. Let me conclude my thoughts on eating brain by stating that I have no idea what Hannibal Lecter was thinking...brain is gross.
Sunday I took a trip with 10 other tourists to an eco-village just outside of Beijing. The village houses over 800 people and is self-sustaining, producing a wide variety of organic fruits and vegetables. The ladies working the fields and greenhouses put us to work. A picture of my first time on a real farm doing manual labor is attached. Hold onto that one because I'll likely never do it again! It was muddy, it was cold and it smelled like manure! Speaking of organic fertilizer, I was shocked to learn that human waste is included in the fertilizer they use on the farm. I was very surprised to learn this, so I immediately asked who they export vegetables to. I'll never eat vegetables from Wal-Mart again without triple washing them, and I suggest you do the same!
China only allows 20 foreign films to be shown in theaters across the country each year. There was some serious lobbying over the summer to allow Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' to be shown as the 21st film for the year. I saw it tonight. Thank you Chinese government! For those of you who like Michael, I would highly recommend seeing it...what an amazing singer, dancer and entertainer he was!
Keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't snow anymore in Beijing tonight!
YOU ARE ONE BRAVE WOMAN!
ReplyDeleteJamie, a group of us girls here back home went to see "THIS IS IT" the 1st day it came out and it was great! how about that female guitarist?? Notice how he gave everyone there credit for their talent?? It was a good way to spend 2 hours on a Saturday afternoon! Have fun over there Jamie!
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