Calling it quits

Well, I leave tomorrow morning from my Olympic adventure, so time to wrap things up here I suppose. This has been quite an experience, but I'm ready to come home.
First, though, a few closing thoughts.
Coming to the Olympics was an amazing experience that I'm grateful I got to have. Seeing the events I went to, especially track and field, was probably the highlight for me in terms of the Olympics stuff. But I enjoyed making the contacts for the magazine, which I think went reasonably well considering I was tasked with finding several people I've never met before in one of the world's largest cities where nobody remotely speaks the same language I do.
China is a remarkable place, of course, but as the food stories have suggested, a bit intimidating to get a handle on when you're by yourself. Still, by and large, except for maybe the air in the subways (and, well, outside the subways too) I did enjoy myself here.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by to share my experience here with me. I enjoyed your comments and I'm looking forward to telling you all the other stories I didn't write about.
See you soon!

Dish of the day

My trip is winding down here, so this will be the last dish of the day. And this one, according to my Haidian District guidebook, is as good as any to send it out:
Page 40, the Yibeyuan Restaruant. The specialties of the house? "Fried towel with wild chili, silver cod in pot."
Fried towel anyone?

Say, Grace

Funny moment from yesterday I forgot to mention: I'm coming out of a store when a young Chinese woman stops me to practice her English, which happens a lot here.
Her: Hi, my name Grace, where you from?
Me: Um, Los Angeles.
Her: Oh, American! You surprise me!
Me: Why's that?
Her: Americans very fat, you so slim!
Me: Thanks, Grace. (Although in my brain it went like this: Um, when all you offer me to eat here is donkey meat pot and honey nachos and go-to-court with son and variegated crap heads, what do you expect?)
I'm already ready for a huge meal of something I mostly recognize back home...

Hot pot fun

After all that strolling, Kevin and I were pretty famished and he suggested a truly Chinese experience for my last culinary treat here: Hot pot.

Not quite like the "hot dish" they have in Minnesota. In this version, you buy a bunch of meat and vegetable and dip them into one of two vats of water that boil in front of you. The vat on the left in this photo is the soothing, pleasant-tasting one. The vat on the right is the spicy one, and holy cow is it spicy.

And of course, no meal in this city can come without something absolutely egregiously mis-translated on the menu. Among our options were "variegated crap heads" and "fresh grass crap slices." I kid you not.

Mmm, crap slices.

We opted out of those and stuck mostly with beef. It was all quite tasty and I felt like I had finally had a reasonably authentic Chinese meal before I left here. The only downside? That hot pot gets awfully steamy and after a day walking a bazillion miles in the heat and humidity, I had had enough of steam. Or, maybe it was an appropriate way to end the day.

Summer in the city

We had commandeered Benny for the full day, so after the wall, we had him take us over to the Summer Palace, one of Beijing's other popular attractions. It used to be an inner-city getaway for emperors and empresses, but had a long history of plundering and fires, until eventually it became a must-see attraction for commoners. (How's that for condensing hundreds of years of history...)

It was peaceful, and like most things here, enormous. The grounds go on forever it seems and you can hop into different temples and dwellings or just stroll around the various lakes and canals. We had our wall feet under us, so we just strolled and explored the grounds a bunch. It was really nice there, and with a few more hours to spend, there would have been a great deal more to see.

Hitting the wall

Today I visited the Great Wall and it is difficult to process how incredibly cool and impressive it is. Earlier this week, my former co-worker Kevin who now lives in Beijing had set up with a taxi driver friend of his to take us out for the day. "Benny" picked us up early, about 7 or so, and we set off for the 90-minute drive to the section we planned to visit.

To get up to this stretch, you have to take a ski lift. But when you get to the top, you walk around the top of the wall. And walk. And walk. And walk.

The stretch we were on went for several miles. Some of the time you're on stairs, some of the time the ground is flat. Most of the time it is quite steep. Today was considerably hot and extremely humid, so it was nice when you made it to one of the towers, where you could stand inside and feel a decent breeze.

We did an extrordinary amount of walking. Perhaps the most impressive thing was that Benny joined us and insisted on carrying my beloved Ski Utah bag and Kevin's heavier camera bags. And he did the whole thing wearing loafers. While chain-smoking. And not breaking a sweat. It was almost as impressive as the wall.

The stretch we were on of course is just one of hundreds, and there was so much rock on the thing that I actually can't get my brain around the amount of planning and engineering and work involved in ever putting the entire wall together. How is it possible?

I could go on, but I won't. But I will say that it was so much to take in, that when we finally got down to grab a bite to eat, I was shocked that we had been up there almost six hours. It felt like about one.

Suffice to say there's a reason the Great Wall has become so iconic. It certainly deserves it.

Closing down

Well, the Olympics officially came to end tonight here in Beijing. Unfortunately, I didn't have tickets to the ceremony. Tickets for even the lamest of Olympic sports were pretty hard to come by, and the opening and closing ceremonies were considered the hardest of the lot. As a security precaution, tickets were not even transferrable for these games, meaning you needed to provide passport numbers and identification with each ticket. If your name didn't match the ticket assigned, you weren't getting in.

In any case, I watched the ceremonies from my television, which broadcast them on about 10 of the 50 or so CCTV government-sponsored stations here. Nothing compares to that opening ceremony, but the closing was very nice. If you watch, keep an eye out for the mayor of London, whose name might as well be Mayor McDoofus. Yikes, someone tell that guy to at least button his coat. He was my favorite part of the whole thing.

Well, that's not true. Although it may be a bit blurry up there, when the fireworks went off at the end, I got a fantastic view from my 24th floor hotel room. My hotel isn't anywhere near the Olympic Green, but I still got quite a show.

And while the games may be over, my adventure continues for one more day. On tap for tomorrow, a trip to China's must-see attraction: The Great Wall.

A word on translation

The whole things-amusingly-translated thing in China is honestly a bit odd to me. The thing I don't understand is that there are plenty of people on Earth, and probably right here in China, who are perfectly capable of translating Mandarin Chinese into English, even if some of the words don't exactly match in each. I just don't quite understand how one of them at some point wouldn't say to, perhaps, the restaurant manager of my hotel, something like: "You can't list this cereal as 'honey nachos.' You see, in English that means putting a sweet sugary substance on a Mexican treat with tortilla chips, cheese, beans, jalapenos, perhaps some meat, and that's not what you're going for in trying to describe a breakfast cereal. Tell me what you'd like it to represent and I'll offer you a better suggestion."

How on earth is there no one who could question "go-to-court with son" as a house specialty? What is this supposed to accomplish by listing this item? "Hey honey, what are you hungry for tonight?" "I don't know, maybe some seafood?" "No, I was thinking that I could really go for some good go-to-court with son. What say we head over to the Kongfu?"

Or this restaurant above that I walked by today. It's called "dishes, dumplings, Museum." Museum! Honestly, is there not one person who could tell the owners of this restaurant what's gone wrong here?

It seems to me that all of these are honest-to-goodness efforts to try to describe whatever concept they are trying to sell. But how can that possibly be? Is there no one who can speak Chinese and English willing to expose this, or is it just some enormous internal joke among translators? I just don't understand.

Dish of the day

I had already picked a pretty strong winner for dish of the day and even began writing the entry when I came across one I had not yet seen. The one I had picked will have to wait, and I think you might agree.
This one on page 44, courtesy of the Kongfu Hotel, may be a gold medal contender for dish of the trip, according to the specialties listed in my Haidian District guide book. Um, take a look at the second entry (I swear it says this) and tell me if maybe the chef had his mind elsewhere when he agreed to list these specialties of the house: "Kongfu No. 1 Dish, go-to-court with son, fish balls in soup, shredded fish, first-class tofu, Taibai goose, Yantai jiaozi."

Silky smooth?

After my visit with the Japanese folks, I noticed that Beijing's famous Silk Market was a reasonable walk away, so I decided to check it out. The Silk Market has one rule: You must haggle.

The place is a four-story crowded building just packed with clothing, scarves, jewelry, games, videos, Chinese art and just about everything you can think of, but where absolutely nothing has a price tag. The drill goes like this: You see something you like, the pushy saleswoman offers you a price, you laugh, you offer something 1/10th the value, she laughs, she types a number on a calculator lower than her first price, you laugh, she says "how much you wanna pay," you offer something slighty more, she types a new number in the calculator much higher, you walk away, she chases you, you laugh, she types a new number, you offer your first number, sold. According to the guide books, if she's still smiling when you leave, you got suckered. If she's mad, you've won.

Haggling it not exactly my specialty but I was there so I figured I'd give it a shot. The items I purchased shall remain nameless lest any readers of this blog receive them, but let's just say I bought two things and after one purchase the lady was smiling and after the other she looked like she was going to kill me. I figured I'd cut my losses. Oh how I wished I had a partner in the haggling though. Those couples that were working the floor seemed to be making lots of people very, very mad.

Tokyo tries to impress

One of my last official business stops here was a visit this morning with the people behind Tokyo's bid for the 2016 Olympics. Of the other three finalists (Chicago, Rio, Madrid) they are the only one who's hosted it before. A lot has changed since 1964 when Tokyo last hosted, but some things have not. Their bid for 2016 includes four venues that were used for those games, although interestingly, only one of them would be used in 2016 for the same sport: Judo.

Tokyo's bid committee is based at a hotel in central Beijing where Japan House is located. Interesting differences between the USA House I visited the other day and Japan. Japan's "house" is open to all visiting Japanese and is located essentially on the main street in Beijing. The U.S. uses its "house" at a hard to find location as an invite-only place for people to do business. But there are some perks to that for visitors. While the food was glorious and plentiful at USA House, the same amentities were not offered to those visiting Japan's place.

Tokyo is banking on its Olympic history and Japan's high technology to woo the games. As a demonstration, my Tokyo contact had somebody operate a robot that danced a little hip-hop and kicked a soccer ball. It was interesting, I suppose, but as it was happening, I was thinking: "And this is going to help you win the Olympics how?"

But best of luck to them.

Dish of the day

The Mishengyuan Seafood Chinese Food Restaurant on page 45 of my Haidian District guidebook wins dish of the day, mostly for the simplicity of the last item considering the alarming specialities that precede it: "Fish head in jar, stir-fried shrimp balls with bamboo shoot, mango young ox bones, Seafood in bags, eggplant."

Cheap drinks

A quick note on the cost of food at the Olympics. About a month ago, I went to Dodger Stadium where a beer sells for $13. $13!

At the baseball game I went to tonight, a large beer went for 8 yuan, about $1.25. That was the same cost as the Bird's Nest.

Bottled water is 3 yuan, or about 50 cents. Can you imagine how much a bottle of water would be if the Olympics were held in the US?

Baseball abroad

Tonight I went to the gold medal match for baseball, which will be the last baseball game played at the Olympics, at least for a while. Baseball and softball are out as of 2012, but they are lobbying to get back in for 2016 and beyond.

It couldn't have been more clear how different the effort is for baseball than for the big events like swimming, track and gymnastics on the majestic Olympic Green. The baseball stadium is way out on the other side of town near my hotel, and stadium is a generous term. The entire thing is temporary. All the bleachers, the grass, the grandstand, everything. It's been built on a big concrete open square by some government building. Somewhat fitting I suppose for a sport not in the graces of the Olympic establishment.

The US had a chance to play in the gold medal game but lost yesterday, so I got to see Cuba vs. Korea. Quite perplexing when they got to the line "root for the home team" during the 7th inning stretch while you're watching Korea and Cuba play baseball in China. Heck of a game though. Korea won, but nearly blew it in the 9th inning after leading the whole way.

And while there may not have been a home team, there were lots of Koreans who had all sorts of chants to cheer their team on all night long. One Korean baseball tradition I don't care for? The man who opened up a bag of dried anchovies behind me during the hot muggy night. Isn't there supposed to be something about Crackerjacks? I thought I heard that in the song. Oh well.

It all had a quaintness to it on an entirely different scale than my track and field experience last night.

It's too bad it won't be continuing.

1 billion nice people, one angry one

Last nigth I met the angriest woman I've ever seen in my life. By and large, the Chinese people I've come across have been quite nice and willing to help as best they can. But there was one exception.
When 90,000 people let out of the Bird's Nest after a night event, they are herded to a subway station and set loose by subway across Beijing. The subways are insanely cheap, about 30 cents a ride. One of the better things the Olympics folks have done is waive the need for that ticket at the end of events. Imagine 90,000 tired and sweaty people lining up at a ticket station to pay their 30 cents and you can see the problem there.
The thing with the Beijing subway though is that when you leave the station, you need to surrender your ticket. No ticket, no exit. You'd think they would waive that last rule about needing a ticket to exit during the Olympics. Maybe they do for the stations near the Olympic Green, but mine was pretty far away, and by the time I was exiting my station, I realized I didn't have a darn ticket to let me out.
It was then that the angriest woman I've ever seen in my life emerged from a ticket booth and started laying into me. Oh, there was a lot on her mind and she let me have it. The only thing I could think to say, rather meekly, was "Olympics?" Eric had given me a Chinese-English dictionary (thanks Eric!) and I've been carrying it with me, but unfortunately it does not contain the phrase "Listen, sunshine, you may not realize this but you're really angry with the International Olympic Committee, not me. I didn't make the rules. Can you cut me some slack please?" Some dictionary.
Eventually she let me go, but only after two Chinese people who were mercifully in the same boat I was started yelling back at her. The lady opened the gate for us, but she's probably still steaming about it.

Keeping up with the Johnsons

Yesterday featured Shawn Johnson and the pavilion of Johnson & Johnson. So maybe it was fitting that this morning it was Davey Johnson, the coach of the '86 Mets team that won the World Series, that I saw while at breakfast this morning. The coaches and staff of USA Baseball are at my hotel and Johnson is the head coach now of the US team, so it wasn't a total shock to see him there. In fact, I was kind of hoping our paths might cross.
I was at the cereal station and looked up and there he was. (Side note: One of the cereals my hotel offers is called "honey nachos," and while something has gone horribly wrong with the translation, the more I think about it, the more the notion of actual honey nachos sounds more appealing. Maybe my food radar is completely off this week...)
In any case, we spoke for a minute or so about the Mets and it was another cool chance encounter.

Training the athletes

This morning I met with a friend of the magazine's named Wes, who works for the US Olympic Committee. He's a former Olympic weightlifter who in Beijing is in charge of the US training center. I never knew they did this, but the US team in recent years has decided to build its own training center on site at the Summer Olympics because otherwise they have to compete for training time at whatever exists in the Olympic Village. Here in Beijing, they have taken over part of Beijing Normal University (one wonders what the abnormal university looks like...). When I say taken over, I mean taken over.

They worked out a deal before the games to have the university basically build an entire Olympic grounds for them. It was incredibly impressive. They built a swimming pool, a track, a basketball stadium, a 24-Hour fitness gym, and just about anything else you can think of. Round a corner and through the door is a full boxing gym. Behind another door, it's a judo training room. And the USOC even took over a restaurant on the site and uses it to provide meals, huge meals, for the athletes whenever they don't want to eat in the athlete's village. Wes said part of it is psychological so the athletes have some familar food around them, a concept I have already come to completely understand.

The NBA team has been practicing in this gym above for all its games. Wes said they used it to keep them out of the media frenzy, but that professors at the university, who are supposed to be on a semester break, kept finding their way in to accost them for autographs. When I was there, the women's volleyball team was training.

The sheer scope of this complex gives quite an insight into the effort a country like the US puts into its sports programs. How many other countries could possibly afford, or care to invest, that kind of effort into something like this? It's got to be a short list.

An ode to my bag

My most loyal companion on this trip is a shoulder bag that I received the first week I started at the magazine when some Utah ski public relations folks paid a visit. It's the type of thing we would have rejected as a gift at the paper, but at the magazine, well, different rules apply for such things. I'm kind of glad I kept it. It is phenomenal how much paperwork I can hold in there in addition to precious snacks from Costco that Niki packed me for those moments when I get tired of eating special donkey meat pot and all the other lovely delicacies here. The paperwork I bring are photocopies of maps of every conceivable place I might visit on this trip, in addition to the requisite passport and hotel information that I feel I should probably have at all times.

But perhaps its biggest benefit is the imagery of a ski mountain on the side that is a huge relief while I'm taking in that off, noxious smell that is everywhere here. Instead of trying to process exactly how many hours of my life are being reduced for each 10 minutes of dank subway air I breathe, I can think of cool mountains and taking in a lungfull of that stuff instead. So, thank you Ski Utah bag.

Dish of the day

From page 43 of my guide book, something has gone horribly wrong with the specialties of the house at Cuiwei Xiangmei Restaurant. Niki, I suggest you not offer this last item at Belmont Village: "Boiled fish, yuxiangrosi, (I swear it says this next item...) Grandma fragrant bone." What in the world...

Into the Nest

After basking in the cool oasis of the USA House, I ventured off to the Olympic Green for my first event. So far, this trip has felt like a business trip to Beijing. Tonight, it felt like I was at the Olympics.

It's difficult to describe how cool it was. You see all these iconic venues on TV and next thing you know, you exit a subway station and there they are. The Olympic Green is massive and in addition to the venues, sponsors have these "pavilions" where they show off cool stuff, or in some cases, kinda boring stuff, but it's in an air conditioned room so it doesn't really make a difference. Johnson & Johnson had some of the terracotta warriors on display. Most cool.

Everyone everywhere is taking pictures of themselves in front of the stadiums. It's impossible not to walk into someone's shot. But the Bird's Nest was even cooler inside.

Well, cooler in appearance, but about 20 degrees warmer than it was outside, which was pretty darn hot. Not much air circulating in that old nest. Poor air circulation seems to be a recurring theme here.

But I wasn't complaining when I found my seats. Basically 50-yard-line seats with views of the finish line right in front of me for the 4x100 relays, and panoramic views of javelin throwing and all the other random things that happen at a track event.

Side note: Here's the coolest job at the Olympics. When the javelin guys heave their javelins, three guys on the field stick the tossed javeline in a remote-controlled car to return them to the athletes AND SOME GUY GETS TO JUST DRIVE THE REMOTE-CONTROLLED CARS ALL DAY AT THE OLYMPICS!!! I want that job. Oh, worst job at the Olympics? Being one of the three guys in the field who people are tossing javelins at.

The whole thing was amazing. The relays were great. I watched Bryan Clay from the US win the decathalon and get a medal with the national anthem and everything. An Italian guy earned a gold medal and they played that anthem, which apparently is 10 minutes long. And then at the end, the last thing left was the pole vault of all things, which an Australian guy won on the last vault. But he wasn't done: He decided to try to break the Olympic record after he already won the gold. He missed the first attempt, then took 20 minutes (20 minutes!) to regain his composure on his last try, and beat it. It was one of the most compelling sports events I've ever been at.

But exhausting as well. The weather was scorching and between trying to find USA House earlier in the day, and walking the Olympic Green, I was beat. Five subway transfers later (I'm getting to know the system a bit too well, which is frightening) I'm back in my hotel. And beat. More adventures on tap for tomorrow.

USA House is like a home

My bosses had advised me when I got here to find the USA House as soon as possible and camp out there. I didn't quite grasp the significance. I do now.
Oh, what a glorious, splendorous place this is. The US Olympic Committee basically takes over a four-story building near one of the venues and offers it as a refuge for athletes, USOC bigwigs and anyone doing business in an Olympic capacity with the US. The trick is, it's invite only.
I figured out a way in though by setting up an interview with the lead guy behind the bid by Chicago to get the 2016 Games. I spoke to him for about 15 minutes, but that was enough to earn me an all-day pass. The best part? Lots and lots and lots of free food. And food that's recognizable. Nothing from a dog. No sheep elbows. No fish heads. Just endless buffet tables of delicious American food. Well, that and Peking Duck. It was quite a spread.
So, I grab a few plates of stuff and sit down in a cafeteria area where they have some Olympic events on big screens. And I look over to my right, and next thing I know, gymnast Shawn Johnson sits down at the next table with her family and some USOC press person to hammer out her strategy in commenting or not commenting about the probe into the age of the Chinese gymnasts.
Say what you want about how old those Chinese gymnasts are, but let's talk about how short ours are. I was not wearing a shirt with a pocket, but if I was, I am telling you I could have put Shawn Johnson into that pocket. That girl is perhaps five inches tall. The camera puts on about four feet apparently. It was shocking how tiny she was. I eavesdropped for awhile and then watched lots of people tried to take her picture.
After a few hours of air conditioned bliss (and not the re-conditioned smoggy mess that passes for air conditioning on Beijing subways, perhaps more on that later) I ventured off to my first Olympic event: Track and Field.

Dishes of the day

From page 42 of my guide book: The Dadelong Restaurant offers "special grilled sheep elbow." And just down the street is the Three-State Story Restaurant, which offers as its specialty (you might want to sit down...) "Grilled hairtail with special flavor."
Mmm, hairtail.

Finding Bruce

Another one of my missions here was to locate a guy named Bruce who is Budweiser's international marketing chief. Anheuser-Busch does business with the magazine and Bruce had arranged to get me and a friend onto the list at Club Bud, a somewhat amusing nightclub that Budweiser sets up in some warehouse and invites Olympic athletes and people that the company does business with to drink free beer and party the night away.
For this mission I was joined by Kevin Chang, a former photographer from the Press-Telegram who as luck would have it now lives in Beijing. It was a relief to have someone I know here who I could have a conversation with and not simply have to nod and smile.
Kevin and I grabbed dinner at a ridiculous Italian restaurant where on the menu the owner is purported to be seen with famous people. The give-away: Somehow I don't think Sylvester Stallone showed up there in his clothes from Rambo. With blood on his face. And if he did, someone should have said something.
Anyway, we found ourselves over to this club and immediately started asking for Bruce. I have no idea what Bruce looks like, but I know he was supposed to put us on the magic list to get in. When our names weren't on there however, all we had to do was drop Bruce's name. As one guy at the gate said: That's the name to know.
Apparently. But Bruce was nowhere to be found inside. Over the course of nearly four hours, I asked and asked of people with earpieces who looked important. Each time I had just missed him. As the evening went on, more and more athletes started pouring in, many wearing their medals. One Belgian guy brought his gold medal and then appeared annoyed that so many people wanted their photo taken with him. Why in the world would you wear your gold medal to a place like that and not want attention? Some Chinese woman has a lovely picture of her smiling and a Belgian Olympic champion looking the other way talking on a cell phone. Should be a keeper.
Alas, as it neared 1 a.m., I had given up on the mythical Bruce. On our way out the door though, I saw the first person we met when we entered who said Bruce was the guy to know. On a lark, I asked one last time if he had seen him. Turned out he was standing right next to me. We spoke for a few minutes. Mission accomplished.

Me and Pele

So one of my goals here is to make contact with members of the committees bidding for the 2016 Olympics. Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro are the finalists. Each has a presence at different hotels in something amusingly called a house. There's USA House, Spain House, etc.
Tomorrow I'm meeting with the Chicago people, so today I set out to explore Beijing and make some contacts with the other three.
My first stop, though, was at another hotel where some tickets were left for me for two events I'm going to see later this week: track and field on Friday night and baseball on Saturday. I got there, though, and the tickets were not left as I had hoped. Much confusion ensued with the concierge sort of explaining that someone had come earlier with my tickets but left. She eventually got on the phone and I spoke to somene who speaks English, thank goodness, and they sent someone back to the hotel. I watched the women's volleyball match for a while in the hotel lobby (it seems the Olympics are on TV everywhere in places you can't even imagine), and the woman eventually came back with my tickets. She was American and we spoke for a few minutes. She told me that Beijing is enormous and that I can only expect to get two or maybe three things done a day. She was right. The hotel where the tickets were looked like a 15 minute walk on a map. It turned about to be a 20-minute cab ride. Glad I didn't walk!
But walk I did the rest of the day. I went deep into the bowels of the capital and rode the subway to my first stop: Brazil House.
All I had was the name of a public relations contact when I showed up. Amazingly, she was there at the check in station and asked if I was there for the press conference. Um, sure I am. Yes, of course, the press conference, I said.
So I walk another 15 feet and there is the soccer legend Pele at a podium talking about how he's going to help Rio get the Olympics in 2016. It was ridiculous! Better yet, they had food for the press. And none of it, as far as I could tell, was donkey or dog or happy balls. What a relief.
I continued next to Japan House where the people there really didn't know what to make of me. Nothing like trying to converse from English to Chinese to Japanese. It was a mess, but the end result was that the one person who could help me, a Mr. Takaya, was not at the hotel so could I come back later? We'll see.
My last stop was what I thought was Spain House. Imagine my surprise when I walked in to find Georgia House. Kinda gloomy in there given the Russian invasion and all. Definitely not bidding for any Olympics any time soon at Georgia House. Turns out I have no idea where Spain House is. Bummer.
All of that was a short walk from Tianneman Square, so I took in the sites there and got back on the stuffiest, smelliest, most unpleasant subway car I've ever been on back to my hotel.
Interesting observation. Between all the subway stations and tourist sites and hotels I walked into and out of today, I think me and my bag went through about 800 metal detectors. They really like their security here. Imagine what the NY subways would be like if you had to run your bag through a metal detector every time you got in. Sheesh.
More to come...

Sleepy, smoggy and a bit strange

Arrived in Beijing yesterday. A few quick observations. It appears people in Asia do most of their shopping on airplanes. It seemed that about every half-hour, someone was making an announcement about duty free items for purchase, or handing out lists about what's available to purchase duty free, or coming by with a cart for duty free purchases. I opted out.
Took one of those naps when I arrived that's hard to wake out of. Indeed, that nap could have lasted weeks. But eventually I got up to experiment with dinner.
Went down to one of the hotel restaurants, where I was handed a menu with the offerings. Oh my. There literally was more dog on the meu than chicken. And every beef item contained a photo of raw beef, bright red so even I could see it, but phtotgraphed nicely on the plate. I thought, is this just for display? Surely they cook the stuff, right? I didn't attempt it, settling on a floundner that came with the head attahced. Mmm, flounder head. Another observation, Chinese waiters and busboys seem to thrive on looking the other way when you make eye contact. Eye contact as in, I've been done with my flounder head for 30 minutes and would like to leave please. That's a phrase I may have to learn in Chinese, otherwise it might be a long week.
Lastly, a few direct offerings as featured in a guide book in my room in case I want to explore other restaurants in the Haidian District where my hotel is:
On page 63, the Fragrant Valley Passion Restaurant offers these two signature dishes: "Special donkey meat pot, royal donkey meat pot."
On page 48, the Liuyanghe Restaurant offers "soft-shell turtle for good friend."
But alas, it is page 57 that has me the most curious, courtesy of the Red Autumnal Leaves Seafood Restaurant. Each one gets more alarming than the one before: "Australian clam in salt, bullfrog in jar, cowboy bone in sweet pepper, pine mushroom, rice noodles with happy balls and Chinese cabbage."
That poor cowboy.
Well, I'm off to explore the city and make my first contacts. And maybe, just maybe, eat lunch.

On an adventure

I'm off to China to get a flavor of the Olympics. We'll see if I make it back...