A Few Days in Beijing

We are on our way to a teachers conference in Seoul, Korea but we stopped in Beijing for a few days of sight seeing. After arriving in China's capital city, we were reminded of how crowded China is. There were people every where we turned. The squeeze was definitely on during our visit to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. It seemed that all of China must have been visiting on the same day. The Forbidden City is a museum that used to be the imperial palace. It's construction began in 1406. From within those imposing wall, 24 emperors ruled China for nearly 500 years. It occupies an area of 720,000 square meters and has over 9,000 bays of halls and rooms. It is listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO. Since I love history, I enjoyed the visit. If I had it to do over again, though, I would pay the extra money for the guided audio tour and to see the extra rooms.

One thing that Beijing in famous for is it's variety of foods. One that I really enjoyed is called "Beijing kaoya" or Peking duck. I have tried duck before, but always I found it to be really greasy. The duck we had here in Beijing, however, was not greasy at all. In answer to "what does it tastes like", it definitely does not taste like chicken but instead has a stronger, wilder taste. They combine that tastes with sauces that are a little sweet and tangy, then you wrap the slices duck, combined with scallions and cucumber in a thin crepe like pancake. It was excellent. At another restaurant in Beijing, we had a simple meal of rabbit, chicken, and broccoli. The food was very good but the thing that makes this restaurant nice is that you also get treated to a show. JingJu, or Beijing Opera, is not something that many Westerners enjoy because of the high pitched singing. However it does have interesting parts. The interesting thing about JingJu is the colorful costumes and the various masks that the actors use. It is always a highlight to see how they change their mask with just a jerk of the head. That is the show that this restuarant features. A costumed actress dances around to lively music. The multipule mask changes that are made in time to the music is completely fascinating. I got a little video of it, but my batteries died just as it was getting interesting. Sorry.

Later on we went to Wangfujing Jie, which is a street famous for it's open air vendors. As we were walking along, I was once again struck by the fact that my in laws must have been trying to prepare me for life in China since Amanda and I were married. They were always trying to get me to eat various critters that you can never buy at the local Walmart. For example, just two weeks ago, they served rattle snake (freshly killed by one of the family). On Wangfujing Jie, you find booths lining the street selling all kinds of "xiao chi" or snacks. Some of the things they sell are items that I would not be surprised to find on Morris and Teresa's table. So when the vendors offered me snake on a stick, I thought to myself, "that's not so bad. I have had it before!" (Thanks Teresa) But they also sell things that I think even the inlaws would shy away from. See the pictures below.

- Frank