Disney on “Ice”, and why Darts and Alcohol DO mix

Well the last week has been a HUGE one for us with a trip out of town for some sight-seeing, a spot of drinking over a few rounds of darts (how British?) and experiencing the anarchy that is Chinese New Year fire cracker night(s). Because of this, and to save us (and you) having to contend with a chapter book for the last week’s events we have decided to do it over two posts. So here’s what we got up to for the first half of the last week.

2009 is Chinese Year of the Oxn and effigies of the animal are EVERYWHERE.

Last Thursday I again headed out to continue my sojourn into the difficult territory of the Chinese language, this time with an eating theme. Having already had a bit of first-hand experience in this area and failing miserably, I thought that I would certainly benefit from it but also be able to pick it up fairly quickly (in comparison to, let’s say, Chinese words needed for a beauty parlour visit). This was a good one on the practical front – 2 hrs of classroom lessons followed by a short walk to a nearby restaurant and a lunch paid for by the school (read: paid for by us). In the end though it was still tricky, and unlike the lesson before that on bargaining that I went out and put to use immediately I have not had the opportunity to practice the dining out as we have taken the opportunity over the Chinese new year break to eat at home.

The evening of the lesson I DID have the opportunity to give the food ordering “skills” a test drive when I took up an invite to a game of darts and the option for dinner beforehand. What I was told was “a small social group who like to throw some darts and have a few drinks” ended up being a group of 12-15 expats from all over the world (along with one or two locals) who liked to hit the bar hard and were a great bunch to met up with. The opponent for the night was a team of local Chinese players who ended up taking us on the last game, but the REAL winner for the night was the pub owner, as our group farewelled two of the Finnish members with shot after shot of a variety of European liqueurs (I lost count after 4). In a stroke of great fortune the pub/restaurant (which happens to be our group’s home ground) also has a bit of a Spanish/Mexican flavour to the menu, including a very nice and (relatively) cheap Sangria.

Needless to say I rolled home sometime after 1am and woke up with a slightly sore head (not from any dart accidents, luckily). Fortunately the taxi trip home was a lot more streamlined than the trip there, when I had to ring the restaurant and hand the phone to the cab driver so he could communicate in Chinese where he was meant to go. Mental note: if you are going somewhere in China and you don’t know where you are going and don’t know the language, ensure you take the phone number of the place to are heading as the Beijing Taxi drivers sometimes have issues reading city maps (even those in Chinese, which it was in this case). All in all though it was a great night, and I am looking forward to the new comp starting in around March.

On Saturday we headed out with around 60 other people from Amy’s work to the area North-West of the city, to check out the Guyaju Caves and then onto the Longqing Gorge Ice Festival. While the history of the caves is not exactly clear, the local Government has really gone to a lot of effort to open up this great natural and manmade area to tourists. Notwithstanding the one and a half busloads of our group, there was a small stream of visitors doing the 2-3km loop that takes you past and into the three sections of caves that are jammed between the mountains to the North West of the Badalang section of the Great Wall. As to how many people know about it outside of China is unclear, as I would imagine that many overseas tourists would not have the caves on their list of Beijing Tourist destinations even though it is only 30min drive past the most popular section of the Great Wall for tourists. First stop was amazing, and the second one bewildering (imagine Santa, Walt Disney and Quentin Tarrintino getting together and writing a script over a kg of meth amphetamine). Statues of Disney characters, ice and snow sculptures, full ice castles and slides and a marvellous waterfall all on the front side of a dam – in Australia we try to hide our dams, whereas here they decided to build a dragon up the side (complete with escalators inside to take you up the mountain) and use the frozen surrounds to create a marvellous destination. There was also a very interesting ‘Cave of 100 flowers’ which appeared to be someone’s version of a botanic garden, featuring a broad selection of fake flowers and animals from all different parts of the world – it was ‘interesting’.

Section of the Guyaju Caves, north of Beijing.

Maddy having a crack at the old well.

Guihot's at Guyaju Caves, with Jackson Hole in the background.

We were advised to pack some warm drinks for our trip. I thought I could do better than that and purchased 3 thermoses – one for the coffee, one for soup and one for hot water to make up some instant noodles. They turned out to be a great investment as we needed the warmth of the drinks/food to combat the freezing temps – it was a fair bit colder than the temperatures we have been experiencing in Beijing.

Longqing Gorge Ice Festival

The dragon up the wall of Longqing Gorge.

In preparation for the Ice Festival trip Amy and I jumped into a taxi and headed out to al all sports shop called Decathlon (French brand), which is Beijing’s version of Rebel Sport. After a bit of wandering around looking lost we managed to track down the thermals to keep out the cold during the trip, and also checked upon their bike stuff (which I had to eventually drag Amy away from – you know how obsessed she is with them). In the end I told her that while the top bike offered was a good beast and better than any Rebel offerings, it was a bit on the exy side compared to home and she should head out to the real bike shops instead (which I begrudgingly offered to accompany her to).

On the school front Maddy is continuing to settle in to her school well, and has got an invite to a friend’s birthday party in the coming weeks. In addition to this she has been busily organising a play date with one of her friends and has been nice enough to let us into the conversation (albeit after promises of sleep-overs have already been made).

The next week for the Guihot family is a more relaxing one than the last, as Chinese New Year continues on to next Monday. All things going to plan I’ll be off to do a fitting for a Tuxedo in prep for a ball we have on Valentine’s Day, and will also be enjoying the last of the firecracker season.

On a final note, while we have been able to use the blog to post up some of our favourite photos from our adventures, others that we would like to have put up unfortunately couldn’t be included for storage reasons. To address this we have created an online photo gallery of our adventures in Beijing, which you can check out at http://www.picasaweb.com/reece.guihot Up in the gallery currently is a collection of photos from our trip out to the caves and the Ice Festival. We will upload more to the gallery in the coming days. There are a few there, so feel free to pick and choose.

Longqing Ice Festival - main pavillion. Thanks Uncle Walt.

Yes, Grasshopper.

Maddy on the downward (ice) slide.

New Digs, and the Aussie Invasion

It’s been a very busy week for us all over here, with Maddy completing her first full week of school and me starting my weekly Mandarin lessons. In addition to this, on Thursday we were able to move into our new apartment, just up the road from the temporary one we have been living in. The new digs are great, as not only is it a lot larger than the previous one but it also provides a more secure environment for Maddy to run around in and is also closer to her school. In addition to this we have formally started with our Ayi, who we have not only found to be lovely but also so efficient in running around after us (she puts away anything that isn’t nailed down, so you best not look the other way even for a moment). We discovered this very early on when we decided to drop off a bag of clothes late on Wed night, and by the time we got to the apartment on Thursday morning Ayi had already ironed all of the shirts and rolled up and put away our underpants in order of colour. I actually had to tell her not to iron the underpants else they also would have come with a nice middle crease.

Matt, Maddy, Amy and I getting into the wine and beer. Photo by Dave (who's behind the camera)

On Thursday morning I began a Chinese lesson series called Meandering Mandarin, which combines both theoretical classroom time with practical application in a real life scenario to ensure you get to practice what you have learnt. This week’s lesson was focussed on buying presents, so after an hour and a half in the classroom they piled us into taxis and off we headed to the other side of Beijing to a VERY local market (read: No tourists – ALL Chinese and no English spoken). We were all given 10 kuai and the name of an object we had to purchase with our $$. Any additional cost over the 10 kuai we had to cover ourselves, and anything we managed to save we got to pocket. I thought I had got myself an easy task of sourcing a small Mickey Mouse alarm clock for under 10 kuai, especially when the first price offered was 20 yuan, which dropped to 15 at my first request to “make it cheaper” (“Pian Yi Dian’r”, pronounced pian-yi-di-aarrrr in the local Beijing dialect). I soon found out though that the prices offered at this market were not as inflated as the prices at the westerner markets that I have been frequenting up until now (where you can usually get them down to a 3rd of the initial asking price). So after alot of pushing through the crowds and haggling with my newly acquired but still very poorly toned lines I managed to get one for 13 kuai. All up it was a good morning, and I have since had the opportunity to practice the couple of lines that I learnt. As a consequence, while I don’t necessarily have the tones right I am getting a bit better at listening and picking up on the responses from the shop keepers. The only downside was the fact that the course cost did not cover the return cost for a taxi back to the East side of the city, but luckily I had made the acquaintance of a Scottish resident of Beijing who had also decided he needed some serious survival language (which, given he is an actor doing Chinese movies, is probably worthwhile). He was kind enough to pick up the cab tab for the trip back, and also opened the doorway for a game of darts over a drink or three with a group of expats who make it a habit of touring the Beijing bars.

Me preparing to battle the balmy weather.

Thursday also heralded the arrival of a mate from Australia, who was in Shanghai for Uni and decided to take a detour up to Beijing to say hello when he found out we were here. It was great to catch up with Matty Clark and his mate Dave, who was in town to check out some final product in Tianjin for his new business line. During their visit we were able to get out for a few dinners at some of our local restaurants, where we came across what is a common occurrence in Chinese culture – that being an all out argument after the dinner to see who pays the bill. And by this we don’t mean that people argue AGAINST paying the bill, but rather argue with their dinner colleagues for the right TO pay the bill. It has actually gotten physical on a few occasions, making me wonder if I really will see the all out Chinese Restaurant Kung Fu battle that I am so desperately seeking. I was almost going to give them my dinner bill, on the logic that “now you both have one, so stop arguing”.

Maddy with her Chinese New Year Ox and mask. 2009 is the Chinese Year of the Ox, and the mascots are EVERYWHERE.

On Sunday morning we decided to head around to the Diplomatic Cultural Centre one block from our apartment, where the centre was running a small festival/fete to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Alongside some great dancing and amazing moves involving a troupe of Chinese women and tennis rackets w/balls was a couple of small art and craft stands all targeting the ex-pats. While much of it was over priced there was still a few things that took our fancy, and Madeline used her saved up Xmas money to buy a hand painted mask. After this we managed to find the dumpling making area, where Maddy and I proceeded to have a lot of fun making the dumplings (“Jiaozi”) before handing them over to the cook for boiling and then back to us for the important part – the taste test. The instructor there was impressed that I already had the dumpling making technique almost down pat, a skill which I attributed to Gracey’s great dumpling teachings way back when we were still stomping the floor boards of a uni group house. Thanks Sifu Gracey, your teachings have done me well. Maddy though continued to attract the attention of the cameras, and it was a bit of a media scrum around the dumpling table as we were asked to smile by the official photographer “like we enjoyed making dumplings.” It did feel a bit staged, so luckily just as I was starting to get over it the camera crew disappeared out the door to check out the next demonstration.

Maddy and I on the job at the Jiaozi making table - with all the media there was alot of pressure to perform.

On Sunday evening we headed out again with Matt and his mate Dave to a local Chinese restaurant, only for Matt to find out that he had been slipped a fake 100 kuai note from the ATM in Shanghai. At least he has a great souvenir from his trip  We were all surprised how quickly the restaurant waitress identified the note as a fake, and passed it right back to Matt requesting another one. We also nearly got done ourselves that morning at the festival, having been passed what appeared to be a very different 5 kuai note in a pile of change (we also passed it back and asked for another).

On the velocipede front, while our bikes haven’t turned up yet I am looking to help Amy’s work colleague select a mountain bike before he leaves in June, so hopefully that means a maiden trip to one of the local bike shops the week after next.

Maddy's hamster Blossom - ain't he as cute as a button?

This week I’ll be continuing my Mandarin lessons which I am looking forward to (this one focussing on eating out - a topic close to my own stomach). Maddy is starting after school activities and will be using the bus from this week onwards. Next weekend we are off to see some caves and a snow festival. It is the start of the Spring Festival this weekend, with fireworks allowed to be let off from 12am on Monday morning – we have been told to expect them to not let up for at least the remainder of the week. When we heard about it brought back two of our own hilarious cracker night memories – Jonny’s Badgery Street Birthday Firecracker Extravaganza (which brought on the neighbourhood possie), and the “Massive Attack” which brought on a burn on Amy’s leg. Good times. On a more positive note Maddy has a week off school and Amy has a few days off work, so we are looking forward to exploring more of Beijing during this time.

Maddy - big day.

Our local neighbourhood.

Odd Man Out, and a close call with Chunder Pants

It was a much quieter week this last week in Beijing as we tried to get into the routine of school and Amy’s work. Maddy started school on Monday and, although she was quite nervous about it, she had a really lovely first day – she especially like the fact that lunch is served hot every day and there was lots of food that she likes to eat. On Monday evening we attended a formal dinner to farewell Amy’s colleague. Maddy spent some time at her new friend’s house while Amy and I attended the dinner.

On the home management front (my area of responsibility for the next 3 years) it was time to head out and stock our pantry with something other than milk, bread and chocolate biscuits. While plans were to head to the local Western supermarket to do the groceries and then to the market for the fruit, vegies and meat, I somehow managed to find my way into a local Chinese supermarket (Jinkalong chain – China’s answer to Woolworths) rather than the western one. It had a full range of bakery goods and rotisserie with all types of duck and a sweets section to make the most disciplined diabetic weak at the knees. I was the only non-Chinese person in there. It was certainly cheaper than the western supermarkets and with the meat and vegie sections being busier than the western ones the food is fresher. I did though spend 1hr wandering around the shop looking very lost and like a fish out of water, expecting to be escorted from the supermarket by security at anytime for loitering. Most of this time was trying to determine the type of meats by Chinese character comparison with my small mandarin guide. And even when I finally thought I was done I managed to stuffed up at the cash register when I realised I needed to pay for the fruit and vegies separately and at a different location to the main counter. While an honest mistake for someone not able to speak the language, I still felt like a bit of a tool.

I had actually come across this Jinkalong while trying to find the wet market that we had visited on our orientation day. After I left the Jinkalong I managed to take the wrong turn and by sheer accident managed to find the market. Because of the register mix up I had actually ditched my fruit at Jinka’s so decided to try the wet market for some apples and grapes. As soon as I walked in the door I was swamped in the same way that shoppers are swamped at Yashow, but this time my tolerance was lower for a few reasons – firstly I was still getting over the Jinkalong experience, and I was also weighed down with a few bags of shopping and certainly not in the mood to add any more weight for the trip back. So I stopped at the first stall, managed to Chinglish my way through asking for 3 green apples and (after feeling I might have been done over a bit on price) headed straight back out. A lesson well and truly learnt – ease into the whole culture collision slowly.

Continuing on with the education theme, Maddy’s first week at her new school lasted all but one day before she succumbed to the Beijing lurgy on Monday night. While Maddy wasn’t all that bad on Tuesday she did sleep pretty much all day and night. But it really set in on Wednesday morning and I booked us in for our first foray into the Beijing medical system. We attended an international SOS centre and were able to get an Australian Dr who took a precautionary approach and gave Maddy a good dose of antibiotics to ward off any pneumonia that might be developing. It seemed to do the job as Maddy had an almost instant improvement from Wed evening onwards, and although still suffering a slight cough was getting bored on Thursday and obviously primed to get out of the apartment (which I interpreted as OK for school). While waiting for our turn at the centre we managed to get a live demo of what the current Beijing bug is doing to the little ’uns, with one young kid bringing up the contents of his stomach onto the floor, the chair and himself. Within seconds though there were 4 cleaners mobilised into action, and even before the kid and parent got back from the wash-up the evidence of a stomach less settled had been whisked away at the hands of some seriously strong smelling disinfectant and some good old elbow grease. We were very happy to discover in the proceeding days that Maddy had not got this strain, else it could have been a hard week for her abdominals (especially as she hadn’t really eaten much to bring back up if the tummy bug had decided to bunker down for a sit-in).

The real downfall of Maddy’s untimely cold was that she had not really had the opportunity to back up from the first day of school and build momentum on the class friends front, so when it came to getting her prepped for school on Thursday evening the emotion got too much for her and she was keen to spend the rest of her three years in front of the telly and not at school. Luckily after a bit of life coaching from Amy and some words of encouragement from me we did managed to get her all positive again and she was a lot happier come Friday morning albeit complaining because of the colder weather.

Dressed for business - Maddy all uniformed up for her first day at school.

After dropping her off and bypassing the coffee shop next door for my mid morning caffeine hit due to the excessive cost of my previous cup (the equivalent of $10 for a coffee last time), I decided to head off to Sanlitun shopping area again on Friday to get in some exercise and also to track down a few things that I had been looking to get in Australia. It also gave me the opportunity to check out the new shopping centre called the Village, which, with its designer label and upmarket shops, provides a stark contrast to the Yashow Clothing Market right next door (where the same designer labels are plentiful and the authenticity questionable). One noticeable thing from walking around the Village was the lack of customers/shoppers – it is almost like the demand just isn’t there to meet this new supply of upmarket goods. In the end I only went for the coffee option at the village, but headed away from the market with a pair of shoes, set of cuff links and a new mobile phone battery after finding out the hard way that the Motorola K1 batteries sold by Battery World in Australia don’t actually fit in the phones (go figure). And rather than paying $40 at battery world I managed to get away with one for 40 Yuan which was a lot more to my liking. As for the cufflinks, they might just become my new collectable (given that I had to leave my bourbon collection at home and it’s too expensive to replace here). With a large range of cufflink styles from the classy to the tacky there is an expansive collection from which to choose. I of course started out with a selection from the classy end of the spectrum, commensurate with my usual dress sense :-).

My new Man of Steel cufflinks - Did I mention they were classy?

On the food front we have found that the produce over here is great and they have some wonderful ways of cooking vegies which means that even I manage to be able to eat them (Amy had written that I “enjoyed them”, but come on Amy, let’s not get TOO excited). The mushrooms are fantastic though, as is the eggplant and broccoli (if you are into that kind of thing).

There is a fantastic French patisserie on the bottom floor of our apartment complex. They make addictive hot chocolate and I think we would be in the poor house very soon if we went there too often. Maddy quite likes the meringues and éclairs. Maddy is being quite adventurous with her food and is eating quite a bit which is a change from the usual.

On the topic of food adventures, since our last post on the experience with cold tripe dishes we have continued to broaden our culinary palettes albeit with a bit more caution. On Thursday night we found a great place called the Manchurian special flavour jiaozi (dumpling) house which had a good range of food and a menu that featured pictures of all the dishes on offer. All the food was very tasty at this place, including what has to be the best sweet and sour pork I’ve ever tasted (YES, they DO sell it here). Unfortunately we ordered WAY too many dishes, and even with me pulling out all stops we were looking to have a fair bit left over. Not wanting to have it go to waste we started to discuss how we might translate the “doggy bag” concept to the waitress. Luckily the table next to us needed to same thing, and after watching them grab the grub and run I managed to use a combination of miming and pointing to get the message across. Marcel Marcou I am not though, with my actions looking more like an intention to fold up the table cloth and dash out the door. Whatever – it worked, and we had great leftovers for 3 more meals.


The food in the servings here is certainly value for money, and makes eating out more economical than eating at home western style (which, given our lack of cooking implements in the temp accommodation, the only real option).

What we got for our 123 Yuan at the local western supermaket - we paid the same for a takeaway dinner with enough leftover for 3 more meals.

Amy’s colleague and his family left China on Thursday. It was sad to see them go, especially as Maddy had made such good friends with their little girl. It was great that we were able to spend so much time with them before they left – it gave us a really good introduction to both the work and social side of living over here.

Today we went for a walk around the area we live, primarily to track down a little western bookshop and cafe that had a good write-up in a few of the local rags. After a bit of a hike and having to put up with Maddy’s “are we there yet” we managed to track it down only to find that the only set of stairs up to the shop were undergoing some significant repairs leading to a precarious ascent up and an even more precarious trip down (made even more difficult due to the wet, recently painted hand rail). It was worth the trip though, especially for the opportunity to get into a hamburger and fries for the first time in a few weeks. We took the opportunity to grab a couple of books and then headed back to kick back for the afternoon.

One thing that Amy and I are really enjoying is adjusting to the lazy weekends away from the usual jobs associated with the weekends in our normal lives. For the last few years in Canberra we always found it hard to fit into a weekend everything we wanted to do, because Saturday was dotted with Maddy’s activities and the shopping and the Sunday usually set aside for the gardening and home maintenance. Not having to worry about the house management duties for the 3 years will be a novelty, and we are looking to use the weekends to try and explore as much of the city as we can. (although those who know me would also know how much I am missing my gardening – oh sweet weeds, how I covet thee).

As for the next few weeks, I’m looking to starting language lessons in the next week with a teacher recommended by another recent arrival to the area. The model of doing a bit of classroom work followed up by some practical in the food market or coffee shop really excites me more than the thought of doing the straight classroom option. I’m also looking forward to getting my bikes at the end of this month, having made contact with a small group of ex-pat MTB riders who do a ride most weekends from the area.

Although we have only been here for 2 weeks we are also having a friend visit here next week for a few days, which will be great.

For the bike-o-philes reading this I’m also looking to set up a separate page off this one to post details of all my cycling adventures (when I finally start them), as well as some of the different bike-related experiences I run into.

New Money in Old China

The last few days have been fairly relaxing and not so action packed as the first few. On Friday we joined some friends at Houhai which is north of the Forbidden City. The area includes some original courtyard buildings (Hutongs) and a park as well as being near the Drum Tower (a historic site where they used to beat the time for the city on large drums – Beijing’s answer to Big Ben). In winter the lake in the park freezes over and you can ice skate on the lake. Although Reece was not really enthusiastic about going ice skating (the hire skates at the Phillip Ice Skating Centre always result in painful feet), he was VERY excited when we got there to find that ice skates weren’t the only things you could hire. Also available were chair sleds in various lengths (2,3 or 4 chair), and an even more fun snow bike, which is essentially an old steel frame bike with the front wheel taken off and a small ski welded to the front fork. Some guides welded to the rear of the bike on either side provide sideways stability, and the brake is converted so it digs into the ice rather than the wheel rim.

The frozen lake at Houhai is a big one, which is well and good given its popularity with the locals.

The Guihots on the ice - Reece and Amy on the ice bikes and Maddy on the skates.

Reece getting some speed up on the ice.

The morning was an absolute hoot, as we tore across the ice and Reece had fun getting some serious sideways drift all the time hoping he would not run into an uneven section and be thrown sideways from the bike. In addition to this he also got conned into dragging Maddy’s new friend across the ice as fast as he could, which really gave the legs a good workout. Maddy enjoyed the skating but is still finding her ice legs and she spent a fair bit of time being pulled along behind Amy’s bike. The lake itself was fairly well frozen in most areas, although it looked a little thin towards the edges – we stuck to the middle to be safe. It was certainly a different experience with the ice not being the smooth, groomed stuff we are used to.

Amy in action mode.

Closeup of the ice bike - would be an absolute winner at Phillip Ice Skating Ring

Maddy and her friend on the ice - they had a great time.

After this we went to a great pizza restaurant in the Hutong area. The pizza was fantastic and the menu included a novel drink - Hot Coke and Ginger (don’t knock it until you try it – it’s really quite good. And Reece is NOT usually a huge fan of ginger).

Front courtyard of the quaint Hutong Pizza restaurant - still the best pizza we have tried since being here (and we have had pizza three times already).

We had a great wander through the Hutong area after lunch – they have been restored for the tourist trade but still serve their original purpose as well – being home for many families. It was interesting to note that the locals still share community toilets and showers, yet have the newest, flashest cars parked in the alleys of the hutong.

China's traditional past and present collide.

Traditional courtyard home (hutong).

We decided to walk to the Lama temple which turned out to be a fair distance away but it was good to get out walking the streets – we find this is often the best way to find our way around in a new city. We passed an area that had several music shops selling all types of instruments – there also seemed to be bands practicing, or music lessons/impromptu jams taking place in quite a few of them.

The Lama temple is an amazing place with many different places to worship and quite a few people coming to pray and burn incense (despite the clear signs indicating that no incense should be burnt due to the wind on the day). The highlight for us was the 28m statue of Buddha that had been carved out of a single tree trunk – it’s in the Guinness Book of World Records.

One of the amazing buildings at the Lama Temple. There are many similar buildings in the Temple complex.

We had an interesting encounter with a local on the street, who after finding out we were from Australia wanted to know where my friends “Kangaroo Belly” was (he is quite a thin bloke). Apparently Australian’s have a reputation for the larger stomach / pouch among the locals. Reece had a good time showing off his Australian belly and bouncing belly’s with the local man (who also had an impressive pouch himself).

On Saturday we decided to head back to the local market and buy some more clothes. We are still learning the true value of goods and it was some effort to get an agreed price for some of the items we were trying to buy. Reece was punched quite a few times (in a somewhat joking manner) and at one point after finalising a sale he joked to a store holder that the girl he was bargaining with “loves him” and she yelled back across the store “I hate you” – he must have gotten a good deal.



We took our friends out to a local restaurant for dinner and had a fantastic meal. There were some interesting choices on the menu (including tongue, tripe and eel paste), but we ate quite conservatively. The food was fantastic – as is all the food we have encountered to date.



Today as a much more relaxed day – we spent some time at the pool, cleaning the house and getting Maddy ready for her first day of school tomorrow. For tonights dinner though we managed to pick a restaurant that did not end up having a menu in English but did have one with photos. After a bit of struggle we ordered what we believed was a beef dish, a fish dish and sweet and sour pork. We did though make the assumption that all dishes were hot, which did not prove to be the case. The fish and the beef dish, although already cooked, were served chilled. While the fish dish was very nice nonetheless and the beef dish similar to an antipasto, we are still unsure exactly what part of the cow we were served. Mixed in with the “meat” there was certainly some tripe, which although not Amy’s favourite tends to have a very uninspiring taste. Reece got into it, as well as what we believed to be beef liver done in a peanut and chilli sauce (he said it would have gone well with fava beans and a glass of cianti). The pork did come hot, and was very nice albeit probably prevalent in MSG (which is big here). Reece will be able to confirm this later on tonight if he gets a migraine (as MSG tends to bring them on big time).



This week we are looking to get into more of a routine as Maddy settles into school hours and Amy gets more into the job. We have a few dinners this week which will keep our nights busy, but will also allow Maddy to spend some more time with her new friend before the family moves back to Australia.

Munching on Chicken Head in the Middle Kingdom

Warning: This is a long post.

After the quick-fire orientation day on Monday I woke up on the Tuesday with the beginnings of a head cold, while Amy woke up prepped for her first day in the office alongside the person she is replacing. We were able to catch up with the other family for lunch at a local Chinese restaurant just across the road from the office. The food was great, and we walked out with bellies full for $7 each. That night we decided to brave the new city and head out on our own for dinner. After a bit of too-ing and fro-ing we decided upon a larger place called the Jackpot Cafe around the corner from the apartment. After having what we thought was a respectable crack at placing our order we got a bit concerned when the waiter came back mentioning something with the word chicken in it. Although we hadn’t ordered anything with chicken in it, for some reason we just nodded a lot and shrugged our shoulders. Five minutes later two of our meals came as ordered, followed by a broiled chicken chopped up on the plate with some very basic sauce, complete with broiled and unfeathered chicken head. A bit concerned that this was to be Madeline’s dinner in lieu of her requested wonton soup, we were happy when her actual order arrived thus confirming that we had either a) been duped into ordering something extra, because of westerner’s expected response of nodding when the language comprehension goes south, or b) mispronounced one word and got our intended order wrong. Given the complexity of the Chinese language and our poor grasp it is more likely that the latter was our downfall rather than any intentional deception on the part of the waiter.

As it was, the three ordered meals were great (Amy’s hotpot being an absolute WINNER), while the chicken was a tad bland for my liking. I did though decide to follow my previously stated desire to try anything once, so gave the chicken’s head a taste. To be honest it was all going OK until one of the eyes popped out onto my tongue, which kinda spoiled the texture. Two seconds later there was a pop followed by a squirt of some sort of poultry cerebral fluid across the table, thus ending my short history with eating chicken heads.

Yesterday Amy was again back in the office, and was taken up with meetings for the day. So while Amy was working I decided to head along with one of the other families and check out Chaoyang Park a short taxi drive away. On the way we stopped by a new mall that has opened up next to the park. A bit like the shops of Movieworld on the outside, the mall was nearly deserted which did mean that the line-ups for lunch were non-existent. After pigging out on Greek we headed into the park where the kids decided (against their better judgement) to have ice-cream on a day where the wind chill kept the temperature hovering at -8deg. To see the kids shivering while eating ice-cream really was a Kodak moment and a sure-fire Funniest Home Video Show winner (shame the camera was at home). While deserted yesterday all except for the keen kite flyers, this park is a real meeting point in the warmer months as it also has an amusement park and lots of areas for rollerblading (although sadly riding of bikes is prohibited in the parks).

For NYE Amy and I were invited to a party out at an area called Shunyi, which is around 35min drive towards the airport beyond the 5th ring road. Before this I was able to finally experience the great cooking of our Ayi to be, which was up there with the best stuff I’d tasted in Australian restaurants. On top of this she also looked after Maddy and the other children while we headed out for the celebrations. While the company was good, something didn’t agree with my brain chemistry and I ended up coming home with a huge migraine which still lingered this morning (but dissipated after a dose of caffeine and some Codral I’d brought from home). And before you have a quiet chuckle it wasn’t to do with the amount I drank – fewer drinks were the order of the day yesterday (never good to embarrass one’s self on the first invite).

Today being New Years Day, it was a public holiday here in China so Amy, Maddy and I decided to head in to Tiananmen and check out the area around the Forbidden City. Because of our late start (it was New Years Day after all) we realised we would not have enough time to cover all of the Forbidden City in the few hours before sunset so we decided to wander around the gardens to the South of the Forbidden City. Starting on the SE side (where the taxi driver dropped us off) we headed along the canal through the Park of the People’s Culture. While only a short walk, it did provide us with some great examples of old Chinese architecture particularly the marble bridges and the painted pagodas. We weren’t 5 minutes into our walk when Maddy became the fascination of some local Chinese family, who asked for a photo with her. We were more than happy to oblige, and it wasn’t the only one for the day with another group of young Chinese girls also wanting to pose with Maddy on the way out of the temple and back towards the CBD.

Maddy with the first of two local groups wanting a photo with her.

Reece, Maddy and Mao

Reece and Amy in Zhong Shan Park

One of the decorated pagodas in Zhong Shan Park

When we existed from the park into the front of the Forbidden City we realised that every other resident in Beijing was taking advantage of the public holiday to also visit the Forbidden City – the crowds were thick as we headed through the main Tian’an men gate into the courtyard at the front of the City’s Meridian Gates. Once inside the sheer numbers of visitors confirmed our early gut feelings that the full tour best be left for another day so we decided to cough up the entrance fee to wander through the Zhongshan gardens to the SW of the city. The park provided some great garden areas for visitors and views across the frozen moat to the Forbidden City walls, although as it is the middle of winter here the flora really did lack all the vibrant colours we hope come through in the spring. Nevertheless there were some great structures dotted around the park, including some great stonework that would give the Roman’s a run for their money. The biggest surprise was the Dodgem Cars we came across in the park – I’m told that scenes featuring these ancient Palace Dodgem Cars were in the Director’s Cut of The Last Emperor, but ended up on the cutting room floor (God knows why? :-). Maybe it had to do with the American Flag/Statue of Liberty paintwork that adorned the Dodgem Car duco.

Dodgem Cars decked out in the US flag colours - OK USA!

After the wander through the parks we headed for the foodcourt where Amy ate on her first visit in early December. In this place you charge up a card with credit at the door, and then wander around and pick from a smorgasbord of platters featuring a HUGE range of foods from different vendors (including meats, dumplings, soups and hotpots). Given our still poor mandarin skills it was alot of fun trying to figure out if we had enough money to pay for what we ordered – luckily the shop keepers were very understanding.

Marble Arch Bridge and Pagoda in the Park of the People's Culture

So ended our 4th full day in Beijing. It has been a real learning curve so far, and one that we will continue on for the full 3 years. We are starting to relearn our Chinese starting with the most important words first (diet coke, bill please, receipt), but I expect this to expand rapidly over the next few months as we start to want to do other things and explore more widely.

Things that got my curiosity in the last few days:
Chinese milk descriptions - Fresh Milk is good, but Excellent Fresh Milk is better. We are still awaiting clarification on the rating criteria.

The number of laptops around the place – three customers in the Jackpot Cafe had their heads in laptops while eating their dinner, while at Starbucks yesterday we had to step over laptop power cables to get from the counter to our seats (about a dozen laptops in total). Wireless is widely available and in alot of places is free.

Pizza prices in China are not what they are in Canberra. Our local Pizza Hut is the first one that opened in China, and we went there tonight looking for a moderately priced alternative to the more traditional cuisine. As well as having a very different menu (seaweed on your pizza, anyone?) the prices were 1980’s Australian prices, before the competitive market and shopping docket dropped the prices from $15 each to $6.95 each.

Plans for the next couple of days
As all the lakes are freezing over we are looking to go ice skating this weekend at one of the local parks. We are also looking to head out and check out some of the other sites around the city, as well as getting Maddy ready for her first day of school which she starts on Monday.

Boating Season is CLOSED, as Beijing's lakes freeze over

A popular bike model on the streets of Beijing, and my next 24hr bike. Imagine all the batteries I could carry in the back.