I apologize folks for the tardiness of updates, I am logging on through google China and well, it's in Chinese.

Beijing cuisine

Beijing street breakfast: Carolina and I came upon a cart near where we are staying. For 2 RMB (twenty cents) you can purchase a ping. A ping is uh, well outside of the egg, I am not sure what’s in it: the taste is a mixture of a salty crêpe and a salty omelet. The gentleman preparing the ping and his toothless older friend found amusement in us asking where we were from and the like. The presentation of the finished ping was well dog walkeresque.



Across from Nieves’s flat is a hole in the wall of a dumpling house with a scattering of tables. I have now grown accustomed to being stared at by the locals and at this tiny place where the sanitary conditions ward off foreigners like a lepers’ colony, I was the 6-foot blond with big tits at a USO concert. With our seven-word Mandarin vocabulary, Carolina bravely took the helm as the proprietor of the establishment asked for our order. Carolina surmised that there were only three things served, two types of dumplings and pork buns, which we sampled all of. The dumplings with the side condiments of soy sauce, vinegar and hot sauce were hands down the best I ever had. After finishing the last morsel (here lies the rub) I had this overwhelming thirst. There is a special place in hell of the inventor of MSG next to the inventor of aluminum siding. Funny when you can taste your own mouth and run your tongue over your gums collecting the salt deposits and spitting it onto the street. If you have high blood pressure and want to lose some weight Beijing is ground zero for fat watchers. After 18oz of water and a chocolate bar, the taste of my mouth went away and I was hungry again and craving dumplings. Just typing this I’m thinking about that whole in the wall, the whole tasting your own mouth make you more aware of yourself like yoga but with out moving.

Generally, we have found people very friendly, helpful and curious as so far as to take the time to show us how to eat the food. This was the case with hot pot. Hot Pot is cooking meat, fish, or vegetables in a broth at your table, which is supplied with a burner. We found ourselves on Ghost Street, as people call it here, with over a hundred restaurants serving hot pot. Basically, the hot pot strip. We picked a restaurant using the New York scientific equation

Some form of pricing in the window + the amount of people seated in the restaurant x visual appeal of food on the tables x Hunger = Yeah or Nay.

We were handed a picture menu I feel like a West Virginian here. Choosing raw Pork balls, small thinly sliced steaks, a variety of mushrooms, noodles, spinach, soy and three large beers. The waiter who realized we had no clue, explained with hand gestures and pictures that we needed to order broths. A few minutes later our order arrived, with our blank stares the waiter grabbed a pair of chopsticks and demonstrated how to prepare the food. Dumping the plate of pork into the three broths to cook. The waiter dipped a the thinly sliced steak into one of the broth for about 30 secs smiled and left us to our own devices. The steak was amazingly tender the pork balls had a hint of spice and the mushrooms meaty. Two of the three broths chosen were spicy and rich with flavor. We did damage to the food that would have made a Roman proud. The bill came to 150 RMB ($15) the most expensive meal we have had here.

Carolina’s aunt invited us to dinner at Quanjude a 5-story fine dine restaurant where Kissinger and Nixon, to name a few, ate with the party chairmen. Duck in Beijing is an art; the skin of the duck being the pride of each restaurant and at Quanjude it was crisp and savory. The duck is presented to the table and then sliced, each tables receives a card denoting the number of the duck served since 1864 we had 346088. Bamboo steamers were placed with flour sheets, a side dish of thick sauce and a vegatable to make spring rolls with the cut duck meat. The texture of the spring roll was that of tender succulent meat with crunch of vegetable, crisp duck skin and duck fat. A fatty duck soup with mushrooms was served on the side to round out the fat factor.









Cruising around the city hunger hits you unexpectedly thanks to living better through chemicals you can eat a full meal and never feel full. This ad brought to you by MSG.

After scaling the Drum tower on a half a ping Carolina and I were scoping for food joints. We found a restaurant that matched the equation. Picture menus in hand I picked out what looked to be chicken and ordered beer. Mental note as a photographer I should know better, things never really look like the photo. The dish that arrived was definitely not chicken. From what I could gather it was deep fried bone bites from some animal possibly fish. That said three chopsticks full was more than enough to produce “I don’t like it” out of me.


In Beijing they have an amazing way to disguise salt in many ways a true culinary talent. My palette is still adjusting to the sodium over load, with bottle water in hand and easy access to chocolate I shall go forth and eat.

The sleepy Beijing night awoke in the morning to be a sea of humanity and vehicles. My eyes half cocked and a growling belly we set forth to the bus station to take a local bus to the Great wall. Nieves command of the Mandarin is a life saving asset, she took us to the street vendors for breakfast where we ate ping a egg mixed pancake for 30 cents tasty if you like an egg with salt. Charles a friend of Nieves and Carolinas who attend my wedding who got my cake last night met us at the bus depot with Ruby his girlfriend and another girl.
We hoped a bus and headed to the Great wall. Castillo don’t do buses and this ride confirmed my distaste for the form of transport. Out the window construction on a scale of post WW2 Europe doted the landscape, train lines, highways, and high rises being built as for as the eye can see. We got off the bus and Charles who’s mandarin is very impressive haggled a illegal van taxi to drive us the rest of the way to the Wall, a hour and fifteen minute drive round trip for twenty bucks.

A ski lift ride up I was standing on The Great Wall; it is as impressive as you would think. Mao said He who has not climbed the great wall is not a true man. I am glad at thirty-one I am now a man, I need a beer. Charles haggled with a bunch of beer selling old ladies sitting on the wall Cheers!! Hiking up the step stairs we pushed past the rehabilited part of the wall to the none tourist old remnants parts. Hanging out on the wall for several ours we slowly and carefully head back. To get back to the van we took sleds down yes sleds it was Action adventure with out the decapitations.

The two-hour van/bus ride back went quickly with my newfound narcolepsy. Off the bus to a duck dinner, amazing duck skin dipped in sugar tasty way to disguise salt.

Drifting off to sleep in my 31st year of reign

Carolina and I awoke at 5 30 am, showered and said our good byes to upset cats who would not look us in the eye. The car service sent us a mini van from Palestine missing seats and with a banged up tape deck blaring what sounded like an accordion with a cat being shaved as vocals. Several near death experiences later, we arrived at JFK wide awake.
Da plane!! Japan Airlines, the best way to travel the services as always is exceptional and the food and more importantly the free sake are always tasty. The thirteen hour flight in a nutshell
Reading cover to cover
Harpers
GQ
Lonely Plant Tokyo and Beijing

Movies (time served in purgatory)
Night at the Museum
Charlotte's Web
Open Season

Consumed
4 bottles of sake
1 ambien CE

Sleep
3 hours (note with ambien CE usually a solid 8 hours)

We arrived in Naritta airport in Japan with a four hour layover. Layover is just another word for airport bar and who am I to deny the time honored tradition.Yes, that’s a Mohawk compliment of Carolina and Terry, my next-door neighbor, for my thirty-first birthday haircut. Even the Japanese airport food is great: a little pork and rice with udon noodles mmmm. Two pints and half two bowls of food $36.00 spanktackular! Boarded another plane for the three and half hour flight to Beijing. After two sakes, an hour nap and yesterday’s New York Times, we arrived in The People’s Republic of China. After a painless custom’s check we met Carolina’s sister Nieves and emerged from the sterile airport world at 10 pm. Nieves threw us in taxi speeding towards central Beijing glancing out the windows of the cab you can see globalization. The highway could have been in New Jersey green highway signs Toyota, Cadillac and Audi cars on the road.

We came into Beijing on a sleepy Sunday night hurraling past hundreds of high risers and neon signs with a thick mist of pollution permeating the air. We dropped our bags at Nieves’s flat in Dongcheng and found another cab and headed to D22 an ex-pat dive bar. http://www.d22beijing.com Johnny Cash is everywhere man!! Funny you fly half way around the world to find yourself in a dive bar listen to jazz drinking rot gut vodka. The jazz band Red Hand fused Mongolian throat singing with Coltrane, it was one of the best jazz bands I ever heard. Just a car ride and a couple drinks in a dive bar and the vibe here is undeniable the wave surging. Not a bad place to start celebrating your 31st birthday cake and a crown.

Good Night and Good Luck from Beijing