Wanderlust

Song Dedication

Yesterday, after the big weekend trip, I was quite tired by early evening and headed home to take a nap. I woke up around 7pm, went out to grab something to eat on my own to the neighborhood Mexican restaurant called Nina. I had been there once before but this time, I got to talk to the owner, who is an American named Alan from New Mexico. He says that his is the only decent Mexican restaurant in Beijing though I have to say it's more Tex-Mex than proper Mexican. I had a couple of Margaritas here as well which they do seem to make well along with some tacos. They have been open only for the last seven weeks.

After dinner, I went to the Karaoke cum Live Music bar next door where the wait staff knows me by name by now. I sat at the bar and spent the next couple of hours chatting with the staff as well as the live act for the night, a girl from Inner Mongolia named Sui-Hong (sp?) who had a great voice and played the keyboards with a rock and roll flair even though she was singing mostly Chinese ballads. She even dedicated a song to me, the only Laowei in the bar at that time. That was definitely a first. :-)

Qufu

After climbing Tai Shan and not feeling the slightest muscle pain (thanks to the wonderful massage), we woke up early morning on Sunday and in a rental car, went to Dai Miao, one of the largest Daoist temples in China in Tai'An itself. It was definitely huge with lots of steles strewn about, some of them dating from the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.). After that, we were off to Qufu, about 100km southwest of Tai'An, the birthplace of Kong Fuzi or Confucius.

In Qufu, we saw Kong Lin, the Kong family's cemetery, where all the descendants (with certain exceptions) of Confucius are buried. It was a very big and peaceful place with lots of cypress trees swaying in the strong breeze. We got to see the tombs of Confucius himself along with his son and grandson which are next to each other. Next up was Kong Fu, the mansions where the Yangsheng Duke (or the direct male descendant of Confucius) and his family lived. It was definitely befitting the stature of the family and is considered to be eclipsed only by the palaces of the emperors. Lastly, we saw Kong Miao or Confucius Temple which was comparable in size to the Forbidden City in Beijing. The main hall, with a shrine of Confucius, was huge. The great thing about this temple was that we arrived close to closing time and found the place pretty much to ourselves.

We then were dropped off at Ji'nan, the capital of Shandong province where we took an overnight train to Beijing. This was the first time that I was travelling by hard sleeper class (Ying wo), definitely not as comfortable as the Soft Sleeper we had been taking up to now but not that bad actually. Next weekend, again we will be traveling by this class to Qingdao. Yet another fabulous out of town trip. I love China.

Tai Shan

Today, we climbed the holiest of holy mountains in China, Mt. Tai or Tai Shan. It's been a sacred mountain for more than 2000 years and 72 emperors have come here to climb it and pay respects to the mountain God. It's a place I have always wanted to go ever since I saw photos of it in National Geographic years ago and I was glad to come here and get the opportunity to climb it all the way from the bottom. It's only about 5000 ft. tall and the base is about 1000 ft. but it's a brutal climb full of steps. Zhou Yun, Yuan Yi, Andrew, Ed and I arrived in Tai'An early morning, checked into our hotel, and then were off to start the climb around 9am.

The first section from the base (Yitianmen) to the middle section (Zhongtianmen) was full of historical sites and it got a bit tough towards the end. At this point, we had the option to take a cable car or climb the arduous next couple of miles which is what Tai Shan is famous for. I waited till everyone caught up and then Andrew, Ed and I decided to go for it and climb the steps whereas Zhou Yun and Yuan Yi decided the cable car was more appealing at this stage. It was a very satisfying if tiring climb and I reached the top (Nantianmen) in about an hour and half from Zhongtianmen. Ed and Andrew followed soon. It was a beautiful day and the views were gorgeous. On the way back, we took the easy route by taking the cable car to Zhongtianmen and then taking a bus back to base. I hate going down steps. Give me an ascent anyday. At night, Ed and I took advantage of the massage parlor in our hotel and boy, was it good! They did a great job with stretching all of our muscles well that we didn't need to bother after a hard day's climb.

Brushes with the law

So, today morning, I am recovering from a slight hangover at work and around noon, I get a call from Ed saying that he just got out of a brush with the cops here (Jingcha). They pulled him aside as he was walking to work and asked him if he had registered with them after getting here since he is a foreigner living in an apartment owned by the locals. Obviously, he hadn't and was detained for about an hour while filling out various forms, one of which was a confessional saying that he admits his mistake and that he will get this sorted out right away. Andrew and I have been here more than 2 months and we haven't registered either. Someone fucked up in my company by failing to let us know that we are supposed to do this. Apparently, the fine for this is about 500RMB per day. Later today, we went to the police station with our passports to register but we were told that we have to come back with the landlords. Sigh.

The landlords are all different for all of us and mine is in Hong Kong. So, I have decided not to register since I only have a few weeks left here and am going to take the risk. Keeping all fingers crossed.

Free Beer

Yesterday, Andrew and I went to Shi Cha Hai for dinner at a decent lakeside restaurant after which we came back home and stopped at our favorite local dive bar, Platform, for a bit and were delightfully surprised to find out that they were handing out free draft beer (one each). We went in and discovered that they were having a Latin night with Latin music. The music was some old stuff including ancient songs like Macarena and some Ricky Martin material but we were there for a bit also having Tequila shots (at 5RMB - 50 cents!) and Margaritas. I also found out the name of our favorite waitress here, 'Xiao Zhu', which translates as Little Pig.

Upcoming weekends

I have two weekends left here and we have plans to go out of town both weekends. This coming weekend, we are off to yet another Daoist holy mountain (perhaps the holiest of them all), Taishan, in Shandong province. Andrew, Ed and I are planning to go with Zhou Yun and Yuan Yi for this trip. The following weekend, we are joining a bunch of Sun employees here for a 3 day group outing to Qingdao, the namesake of the famous beer, which was first brewed here in the 19th century by the Germans.

Yesterday, I had my first taste of Mexican food here for lunch at a place called Nina. This is quite close to work and Ed & I went there for a decent taco/enchilada meal. The place was neat, the wait staff spoke English, the menu was in English and the owner sounded like an American. Good for a change. For dinner, Andrew & I went back to familiar ground at Lush, one of the neighborhood bars. Must be the first day since I got to Beijing that I didn't have Chinese food at all. Today seems to be a beautiful day...sunny blue skies.

Heartbroken

Eug left today early morning for Taipei, leaving me wishing that she hadn't. I am already missing her very much. It was so much nicer having her here. It's more painful because I won't see her until the end of June when we both go to India. Last night, Ed, Andrew, Eug and I went to a Korean restaurant in the neighborhood. The food was very good and I can't wait for my trip to Korea at the end of this month to taste more of this. After dinner, we checked out this bar in the same hotel as the restaurant called Club-X. There was one cute Korean waitress there serving just us during the entire time we were there. The place had a huge selection of international beer, the likes of which we hadn't seen anywhere in Beijing so far. I had the Belgian Leffe and something called Red Square which was an energy alcoholic drink laced with Vodka, caffeine and taurine. Ed warned me that I might be very hyper after that though I was just feeling my normal self. Did have difficulty going to bed though.

It was 'Interesting'

Yesterday, Zhou Yun and Yuan Yi took us to a restaurant which specializes in the cuisine of a minority group called Yizu from the south of China. Some dishes were quite nice and the decor was very modern but I can't say this was my favorite restaurant here. We got into this whole discussion of what the word interesting means in English when commenting about something such as a particular dish. The conclusion was of course that when people say something is interesting, what they really mean is that it sucks. One of the dishes we ordered was a dish of bugs. Needless to say, I found it very interesting though Andrew seemed to like it. The man should go to Fear Factor.

The gallery on the side is from a few outings this past weekend when Marlon came visiting when we went to Beihai Park and Lao She Teahouse. There are also a few photos from our night out at a local bar called Platform where we ended up playing with this adorable dog.

Eug is leaving tomorrow and I am already missing her.

Brazil

Old man Atkins would have been proud of us yesterday since we went to a Brazilian (you read that right) restaurant called Churrasca Brazil west of the Tiananmen Square. We were served 17 different kinds of meat from skewers. I liked it very much though Ed and Andrew were hoping that they had made the meat rarer. We had our fair share of Caipirinhas to go with the stuff and was almost sozzled by the time we got back to our area where we went to what is fast becoming my favorite bar in the neighborhood, Platform, where we played some darts and had some tequila shots. Needless to say, today morning wasn't exactly pleasant. I should stick to Er Guo Tou. Marlon left yesterday morning for the States. That was a super brief visit from our man.

Marlon Arrives

My good friend, Marlon, came here yesterday after spending a week at the house of his taiqijuan grandmaster in a remote village in Henan Province. Eug and I picked him up and showed him and a friend of his, Philip, a little bit around Beijing. We went and had lunch at a nice Sichuan restaurant near the Shi Cha Hai area after which we went to the beautiful Bei Hai Park. This park has been around for a very long time (more than a 1000 years old) and is thought to have been the site of Kublai Khan's palace (of the Yuan dynasty). All that remains of the Khan's time is a jade jar. There is a very beautiful islet in the middle of this the Beihai lake which is called Jade Islet on top of which is a white dagoba which was built in the 18th century.

In the evening, Andrew and Ed joined us for attending a performance at the renowned Lao She teahouse where we saw a variety of shows including snippets of a Beijing opera, the amazing face changing of Sichuan opera, a magic show, folk songs from Tianjin and some musical performance. The walkway to the entrance was lined with photos of famous world leaders who had come here including the senior Bush, Castro, Clinton etc. Very touristy but was worth the price we paid.

Simatai

Yesterday, Eug and I hired a car and went off ourselves to the most beautiful section of the great wall (according to most guide books and tourist literature), Simatai. It's located about 110km to the northeast of Beijing and it takes about 2hrs to get there. It's in a county called Miyun and is almost at the border with Hebei province. The literature did not lie and out of the five sections the two of us have covered between the two of us, we thought that this was indeed the most beautiful.

Since this was the day after the labor day holiday was getting over in China, there were hardly any tourists in this region and it was a great day to be out here. We walked as far as we could go towards the east once we reached the wall which is tower no. 12 at which point we were forced to turn back by guards. We ended our trip by having a late lunch at a restaurant with a fabulous view of the wall.

At night, we hooked up with Andrew and Ed and went to a Miao minority (from the Guizhou province) restaurant where we ended up eating their specialty fish dish. It was all right but we were all quite tired and didn't have the appetite to finish. This place is also known for its dog hotpot, which we didn't try though.

Fa Piao

For the last couple of months, I had been under the impression that my company is going to pay me and other people doing this job 'rotation' thing in China on a per-diem basis but yesterday we were told that going forward, we would have to expense everything and would need receipts. It was so easy for the last couple of months since we didn't need to worry about receipts. The first thing I learned yesterday was the word for receipts or invoices as they call it here which is Fa Piao. These are not the receipts of the form you would expect in most western countries but come in the form of coupons of certain denominations and for a meal of say 100RMB, you would get a series of coupons of various denominations adding up to 100. Oh goody, more paperwork.

We went to see Mao's body in his mausoleum yesterday but it was closed when we got there. Instead, Andrew, Ed and I went to see Tiantan or the Temple of Heaven which was spectacular. This was the place where the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties performed sacrifices for a good harvest every year. More poignantly, this was also the place where they had to abstain from sex and other such vices for a period of 10 days or so. Must have been tough in those concubine rich times. The structures here are well preserved and was really beautiful as they had purple tiling on them which signifies heaven. At night, we met up with Eug and went over to our fave area for some drinks, Shi Cha Hai. Lovely lake views, streetside seating and good booze. Life is good again.

Lack of blogging

Due to a combination of laziness, being busy and not to mention the effect of my friend's death, I have been tardy in updating this blog. I will plan on doing more updates from now on since I only have a few more weeks left in China before I head back home. The sightseeing, gorging on food, and boozing has continued unabated between the last update to the blog and now. The weekend after Ed came to replace Frank, the four of us (Andrew & Eug being the other two) took a couple of days off from work and went to Central China. We saw so many things in that 4 day trip that I am going to have separate travelogues and photo galleries for each of those days.

We took the overnight train to Xi'an, the ancient capital of China, and immediately hired a car to go see the 8th wonder of the world, namely, the Terracotta Army guarding the tomb of one of China's earliest Emperors, Qin Shihuang of the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.). Words can't do the place justice. So, I will let you wait to see my photos when I get around to posting them. The rest of the 3 days, we covered two of the five sacred Daoist mountains, the magnificent Hua Shan and the slightly less imposing Song Shan. It was on the foothills of the latter where we got to see the original Shaolin Monastery (Shaolin Si) where we were lucky enough to catch a performance of Shaolin Kung Fu (Wushu to Chinese). We then took a road trip to the incredible Longmen Grottoes where emperors of the Northern Wei and Tang dynasties had huge sculptures of Buddha carved in caves. Enroute, we saw the cradle of Chinese civilization, the dirty looking Yellow River (Huang He). We wrapped up our trip in another ancient capital, Luoyang, before heading back to Beijing.

In Beijing, we had more Karaoke outings and other sightseeing such as the Old Summer Palace, Beijing Zoo and Aquarium etc. There are two more out of town trips planned in the upcoming weeks before I head back home. Will provide more updates and photos in the next week.