Weekly round-up

Although there have been a few (largely food-related) posts recently, I just wanted give a round up of all the other things I've been up to and say a big THANK YOU to all my friends and family that sent birthday messages, cards and presents last week. I am very touched!

In the end I had a lovely birthday. After I welcomed Mary back from her adventure to Xi'an (yes, I was surprised as you are that she made it back in one piece!) I had a reasonably quiet day at work with a nice long lunch. When I got back in the evening, Mary had cracked open a beer and filled the flat with balloons and we had a mini present-opening session and a quick Skype with people in the UK before hitting the town.

The rest of the weekend was filled with shopping, eating (see previous posts!), manicures, pedicures, DVDs, hot tubs and reflexology - so all in all, a pretty good week!

Special thanks to Mary for coming all this way and, intentionally or not, being generally entertaining throughout!

Champagne brunch - Sofitel Beijing

Sunday brunches are quite poplular among the expat community in Beijing, so to round off my birthday weekend, we thought we'd treat ourselves. As luck would have it,VIC in the Sofitel (10 minutes from my place) has a Pink Sunday on the last Sunday of the month - fabulous! Free-flowing pink Mumm and a huge spread of Western and Asian cuisine certainly perked us up after our Saturday night out!

There was also a pink chocolate fountain and candyfloss. FAB.

I liked it, and I enjoyed the food and drink on offer, and especially the fabulous desserts! However, there was no live music, so that was a bit of a let down. Dave rated it slightly lower on food due to "lack of traditional brunch foods on offer". Once we have finalised our rating scheme, I will post the results here……

hot pot Beijing-style....

Ooooooh I am looking forward to the weather getting cold so BGD and I (and any other friends we might have made by then...) can hole up around a hot pot for hours on end! It's a really fun way of eating, so Dave, Benny and I took Mary to Guijie, near where I lived in 2007, where part of the street is bedecked with hundreds of fabulous lanterns, behind which lie a whole host of delicious hot pot venues:

Once there, we copied the locals and kitted ourselves out with some aprons:

Beijing hot pot (火锅), as I know it, involves ordering a big bowl of soup, which is heated from a gas canister in the table. Your soup pot can be divided into several sections so that you can order different types and spiciness-levels of soup. Our spicy soup looked particularly furnace-like, a dark red liquid bubbling much more furiously than the others, and a selection of angry looking chillies puffed up and floating on the surface... eek!

We ordered a selection of raw ingredients: thinly sliced meat, various seafood items and plates of sliced vegetables, eggs, noodles, and so on. And some beer, obv! At the place we went to you could get entire small frogs and a variety of intestines, so be sure to know what you're ordering or you may be in for a nasty surprise...

The next step is to pop the noodles and vegetables into the soup to cook, and to swirl pieces of meat in the soup with your chopsticks (or risk one of your hot-pot-soon-to-be-ex-buddies stealing your prime beef...), dip it in garlic or sesame sauce - et voila! Dinner is served. A very sociable way of eating, that can go on for hours. The heat generated by the furnace makes hotpot a winter winner, but a rather sweaty summer soiree.....

An alternative venue for the more faint-hearted is the Hot Loft, a sister place to the Noodle Loft (see previous post), where I went with my parents in 2007 and had a tasty, cleaner and slightly pricier version of the same....

I could get used to this....

Karaoke (part 1)

I have numbered this post seeing as there will, no doubt, be many a repeat KTV epic over the next six months. Our trip to Melody (of which I am now a member) this week reminded me about all things good about karaoke, and in China especially. Take note Lucky Voice, you have a lot to learn....

Over three hours, Mary and I successfully* busted out tunes from Elton, Gloria and Whitney, with some Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga thrown in for good measure (Mum mum mum mah!). Great times!

* debatable, obvi....

noodles and line dancing

You may have thought that, after Mary's trio of misfortune on arrival in Beijing, her luck could only improve - how wrong we all were!

On Monday, this company failed to turn up as arranged to take Mary on a 12km hike along the Great Wall from Jinshanling to Simatai - generally a fantastic day out once you manage to get there. I was worried that after such a resoundingly unlucky start, maybe Mary might begin to regret her visit, so I set about planning a Chinese style evening of food and entertainment as compensation......

One of my favourite quick eats in Beijing is the Noodle Loft, a fantastic, theatrical and cheap place to chow down on China's pasta equivalent, located within walking distance from my apartment.* The noodles are crafted "with a single chopstick" or a"by the blade of a knife" before your very eyes, and then served with a choice of sauces. Delicious and entertaining! Who could ask for anything more?

Noodlemaestros at work:

After dinner, we hopped in a cab to the south entrance to Houhai, a lake just north of the Forbidden City, where we were excited to find a floodlit group of locals, old and young alike, ballroom dancing to a makeshift stereo. We refused the initial invitations to dance, citing bad ankles, no rhythm and the like, but when the lights went down, and the familar beat of the Venga Boys kicked in, we felt it would be rude not to get involved. So, as the Chinese lined up and began their routine, we slotted in and began to dance, to cheers of "FORWARD - 2,3,4 - BACKWARD - 2,3,4 - FORWARD - 2,3,4 - SPIN TO RIGHT - 2,3,4...." by the ring leader of all this - a kind, elderly, English-speaking inhabitant of Tianjin, in town to visit his daughter (nowhere to be seen....) and have a dance. We were put to shame by his energy and overall fitness, and had to limp off sweatily, 45 minutes later, after what can only be described as an aerobic workout!

On our return home, the great wall company called again, and we arranged a 6am pick up for Mary's hike the next day..... success at last! (touch wood)

* Mary and I are now both painstakingly aware that this place is not within comfortable walking distance of Guomao subway, especially when you are starving and thirsty for beer.

On the right is the famous CCTV building in Beijing (visible from my office window!) which is usually pictured at a 90 degree angle to this, so it looks like a pair of legs.... On the left are the blackened remnants of the Mandarin Oriental hotel that was under construction when it was destroyed by a fire in February 2009 (see this BBC Beijing blog):

Six months later, the burnt out shell is still standing. Rumour has it that, if it were to be removed, the CCTV building would topple over! Ayayaah! One thing's for sure - this blemish on the otherwise-glittering cityscape can't stick around forever....

Jiaozi - 饺子

For those of you who know me (which, dear readers, is all three of you), you will know about my obsession with Chinese dumplings, aka; jiaozi. For Mary's first meal in China, I introduced her to these little pockets of magic, and I am pleased to say they went down a treat. So imagine my delight when, an hour later during our stroll around the hutongs north of the Forbidden City, we happened upon this cheerful duo, making jiaozi from scratch:

After some banter (more from them than me) and plenty of I'm-not-really-sure-what-you're-saying laughter from both sides, we established that it was a "mixed-meat" filling and that I was welcome to pap them. I don't need telling twice, so whipped out the SLR and dived in for a close up:

好吃!

Snapshots of a weekend

What a fabulous weekend! Not only did it herald the arrival of my first visitor, but it also saw the discovery of a huge hot tub, sauna and steam room in my apartment block. Good times ahead! I cannot believe that it took me two weeks to discover this, but better now than in March 2010.

So, where to start? Friday night saw Dave and my first visit to the inauspicious Luga's, where we had several beers and a few unnecessary tequila shots, considering my 5am start on Saturday.... Leading in nicely to Mary's arrival. It was very lucky that I had been persuaded to meet Mary at the airport at 6am, seeing as she forgot to collect her currency at Heathrow, her ATM cards were blocked and her luggage failed to land in Beijing at the same time she did. However, to Mary's credit she put this trio of bad luck behind her, and swiftly went about befriending the locals:

Our Saturday also involved an exploration of the hutongs, a *fabulous* massage and drinks with May, after which we encountered this acquarium-effect ceiling in an outdoor shopping mall, which has to be seen to be believed!

Autonomy in action

Key points about the traffic control issued today for the rehearsals of National Day celebrations:

1. All the stores on the streets of Dawang Lu and Jianguomen Lu must close at 1:00pm on September 18.
2. All the windows of the office and residential buildings on Dawang Lu and Jianguomen Dajie must be closed, and the viewing of those streets through windows or gathering near those roads will be prohibited.
3. All residents, staff and visitors living around Dawang Lu, Jianguomen Dajie and Guanghua Lu have to leave before 1:00pm on September 18 and will be able to return after 7:30pm.
The restrictions may only affect buildings directly overlooking the relevant streets. It’s unclear whether buildings must be vacated at 1:00pm, or whether people simply won’t be able to leave their buildings between 1:00pm and 7:30pm. Area shops will certainly be closed.

As I live and work in the affected area, I am unclear where I am supposed to go, and how I might be expected to get there. Only in China!

I walk past "Le Cool Ice Rink" on my way to and from work. Le Cool has only ever had young accomplished skaters on it at any one time, performing spins, twists and jumps at the demand of their proud parents on the sidelines. A stark contrast to the UK, where the disco music blares and teenagers huddle in groups seeking a snog!

I wish crockery came out of my dishwasher wrapped in cellophane like this!

Week in Review

Well, I have been in Beijing over a week now so am going to give the low-down on what I've been up.

On Friday, I felt a bit blue when I got that Friday feeling and realised I had no-one to hang out with! So I dragged myself across the street from my apartment to the China World Mall, where the Vogue Fashion's Night Out was being held. I had seen the website and was hankering after the Jason Wu canvas bag, and so was buoyed by my success when I stumbled across the stand selling them! Unfortunately, my carrot-topped self caused quite a stir with the photographers and I cursed the fact I had not applied any make-up before leaving the flat. Ouchie! Here's hoping those negatives get destroyed...

On Sunday I ramped up the friend-o-meter by brunching with some of my good friend Lauren's friends. It was nice to socialise! Big Gay Dave arrived on Sunday too, so all in all it was a good day - topped off by the opening party of Capital M, where Dave, David and I enjoyed cocktails, oysters and canapes with "views over Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City."* Courtesy of David, we had somehow managed to weasel our way onto the guest list, and so found ourselves surrounded by the Beijing elite, and felt instantly at home. Ha! Since I was last in town (February 2008), the whole of the Qianmen area has been revamped and developed into a pretty pricey and stylish reinvention of "traditional China", providing ample photo opportunities for the hoards of tourists. A fabulously picturesque backdrop for a drinks reception, but at what cost? The local hutongs and their inhabitants have disappeared, and the increasing disparity between the lifestyles of Beijingers is unnerving.

On a lighter note, today I had a chicken ceasar wrap from Starbucks (of all places!) - my first Western lunch since I arrived. I was quite excited, until it arrived toasted and full of limp lettuce and processed chicken slices! Lesson learnt.

*NB: this is very much a marketing ploy - although the views were good, especially with all the buildings around Tiananmen Square lit up, you had to crane your neck and stand on tip toes to catch a glimpse of the Square or the City!

Children playing in the water fountains at Beijing's huge and snazzy shopping complex, 'the Village', in Sanlitun.

可爱!

Welcome to my blog!

As seems to be traditional in the "blogosphere", this first post is a short introduction to my blog with a little information about my reasons for writing it...

Having recently relocated to Beijing, I have found myself with more time on my hands than normal, and I have yet again been exposed to the treasures of everyday life in China. Simple things about this country make me happy and make me laugh, and what better way to share them with my friends and family than a blog! So please expect a regular run of photos, fabulously-inaccurate and well-meant but misleading translations and other miscellaneous notes and thoughts about life over here.*

Comments, suggestions etc welcome - this is my first blog, and I am not very techno-savvy!

*Though I am well aware that no-one may read this, in which case it shall simply be a personal account of my memories and adventures....!