For those of you who haven't brushed up on your Chinese lately, the blue sign says that the area is under construction. (if you didn't notice from the mess on the right)
You can see the bulldozer in the distance.
On Tuesday, we went to volleyball again...while I played marginally better, I think we really made a breakthrough in terms of our relationship with some of the other players. I figured out our relations are directly proportional to the amount of baijiu we drink and on this night, baijiu was cheap and plenty. We headed out with just about the same number of people as last time, but this time to a chuan'r (kabob) place. We started with about 50 small lamb kabobs and small dishes...what you see below is all of the main dishes. On a side note, the guy on the far right in the yellow shirt has an unreasonably high alcohol tolerance. There is no reason you need to know that, but its something that I'll never forget.
All this food, plus two bottles of baijiu equalled out to 40RMB per person (about 6 USD).
On Friday we decided to go to the climbing wall in RiTan park again. As I mentioned before, China has the most interesting park culture, so we wanted to try and capture some of those moments. Below is a group of middle-aged men, stripped of their shirts playing panamanian-kick-bag (hacky sac). I don't know what makes me laugh more, their age, the game or their lack of clothing.
As it was egregiously hot that day, popsicles seemed to be the treat of choice at the Park. On our way to the climbing wall we crossed thru a field full of construction workers all eating red popsicles. It was quite a site to see.
Friday was the first day that I climbed the rock wall...it was pretty tough and I sweat buckets, but I made it up a couple times.
Close up of my tough climb.
As we biked home from the park, it occurred to us that those workers had a pretty good idea...so we stopped off at 7-11 for our own treats.
Here is Cliff stealing a bite of mine while I was taking his picture. The weather is quite warm here and accordingly, Cliff has been eating an unreasonable amount of ice cream...as so, much like manatees and berry crisp, another new unnatural obsession has begun.
You all probably thought that my ode to Ikea was alittle bizarre, and it might have been, but my other love is 7-11. How do I love thee, I cannot count the ways. The 7-11 that we stopped in had an eat-in counter lined with various billboards recounting the history and greatness of 7-11.
What you should get from this poster is that there are over 32,000 7-11s world wide. The most staggering fact is that there are over 11,000 in Japan alone and 6,000+ in the US. In contrast, there are 4500 in in Taiwan, which is smaller than florida.
Below is all of the beautiful food stuffs that I have blogged about before...on a side note, the upper left had picture is of the dirty water things-on-a-stick.
There are a myriad of great and wonderful and tasty things that 7-11 has available at all god-awful hours of the day. It makes me feel warm inside.
Last weekend we went with our language training school to BeiDaiHe, which is the nearest beach to Beijing. Below is our chariot to paradise.
We paid 259 RMB (about 38 USD) per person to take a bus from Beijing to Beidaihe and stay over for the night. That included two lunches, a breakfast and a dinner. Here is a picture of our hotel room...not bad!
Murphy's Law would dictate that the first day we were at the beach, it would be raining. However, it didn't seem like that stopped many of the beach goers from having their way with the ocean.
There were also a couple of little junkets anchored off-shore...it was quite picturesque.
Another beautiful picture, right? Actually, after seeing this guy, my comments to Cliff were 1) chubby people like the beach, even in China and 2) this guy needs to use some nipple whitening cream (which is readily available in any local convenience store). Beefcake! Beeeefcake!!!
The next day was quite beautiful...Cliff took some great shots. This was a different beach than we were at the day before. It was filled with a fair amount of rocks and tide pools which gently receded into some nice, soft sand. The water was actually nice and cool and it didn't look as dirty as I thought it would be. I went out on a limb and went swimming...I'll let you know if/when something falls off.
We ended up having lunch right by the beach...home made seafood jiaozi...yum. Jiaozi are filled dumplings that are boiled...there are a bunch of different variants (in my Forest Gump voice), you can have deep-fried jiaozi, steamed jiaozi, pan-fried jiaozi or boiled jiazi--jiaozi can be filled with carrots, spinach, green onions, shrimp, pork, chicken...the list goes on and on. Pour a little vinegar on top and have at it. Below is part of the group that we went with.
We were also lucky enough to witness someones special day...chinese style. This is yet another difference in Chinese and Western traditions. In China, most couples will register for marriage and get their pictures taken much earlier than their American counterparts. While the Chinese are notoriously frugal, they will spend a very large amount on pictures. The wedding portfolio will often be filled with beautiful, touching memories, interspersed with a couple classy glamour shots. Below is our bride-to-be wishing on a star. On the right is the photographers assistant.
Even the groom gets in on it...this is right before he shouted "I'm the king of the world!" in Chinese. It was awesome.
This bride dared to be different in a rose red dress. It was quite beautiful. It was even more stunning when she broke into "Don't Cry for Me Argentina".
The last gut buster of the weekend came courtesy of one of the sons of a language teacher. Notice something missing? The Chinese insist on give their children split pants during their 'formidable' years. This way, the child can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, whereever he wants. It really surprises me everytime I see it. Not surprisingly, Cliff has been scouring the internet for an adult sized pair.
I think they are driven to this solution for several reasons. Most importantly, they've been doing it forever...why change something that already works? Also, its cheaper. It always boils down to the almighty RMB. In another strange way, this is a way that billions of Chinese contribute to solving (or at least not contributing) to the global warming/environmental issue. Imagine the amount of waste (pun intended) that hundreds of millions of babies could make a year. Thanks god for tradition and frugality.
Lastly, a glamour shot of my own. No really, this is the result of my very first haircut in China. I've been looking for a place for a cut and color, so I perused the local online forums to find a place. I found a bunch of places that could cut my hair for 50-100 USD, which would still be a pretty good deal, but then I read about this place, called Salon 88 at the Carrefour (local french grocery store complex). They said the cuts were pretty good and cost only 38 RMB (5.50USD)!!!!!!! They washed my hair, cut it and styled it and 1.5 hours later, I came out with this...worth it? ;)
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