It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in Beijing for almost a month! Perhaps it’s because we’ve been on a regular schedule taking Mandarin classes every other day… and once we were on a routine, time seemed to pass by more quickly. Well, then again, time has flown by – we’re going on our 8th month of travel, folks! And it certainly hasn’t been routine!
So, we’ve had a great time in Beijing and are very glad we spent several weeks here. Most importantly, we got to spend more time with family (Jeff, Aunt Judy, Uncle John, and their canine grandson, Chestnut) than we’ve ever been able to because we’ve always lived in different parts of the world. We got to meet wonderful people – Jeff’s friends are super fun, caring folks and we can see why Jeff likes Beijing so much!
But alas, we’re moving on in our travels. We hope to return to Beijing soon! Here are some additional moments from our time in Beijing:
Traditional Beijing Hotpot, in a coal heated pot:
Is it better than other hotpot we’ve had? Hmmm… not really. There’s not much space to cook things and sometimes that yummy piece of beef you were looking forward to eating gets lost in the depths of the pot. Doh! But it’s just something you need to do when you’re in Beijing. The “modern” hotpot restaurants have personal hotpots where you can select your soup and sauces, or have larger pots where there are two types of soups. These are far more convenient and fun. Trust us, we’ve been eating a lot of hotpot because it’s been a particularly chilly Fall in Beijing.
Another great thing about being in Beijing is that all of the different provinces in China have official administrative “offices” there. In some cases (maybe all?), they have a hotel for their dignitaries and a restaurant serving authentic cuisine from their respective province. Jeff took us to the official Yunnan (southwest China) restaurant. Here’s what we ate – fried mint leaves, stewed pork ribs, wood ear fungus in vinegar, and many other things. The flavors had hints of Thai and other southeast Asian cuisine (YUMMMM!):
And this is the only traditional use of a cheese-like ingredient in Chinese cuisine that we’ve experienced – goat cheese curd (sort of like mozzarella) with sliced preserved ham (think prosciutto).
As I mentioned earlier, Mandarin classes were a big part of our experience in Beijing. Here we are with Elly, our teacher. Not only did she teach us Mandarin, we also learned about life in China through her perspective as a young adult.
Finally, since we started our stay in Beijing with a family dinner featuring Beijing roast duck, what better way to end our stay than with a Beijing roast duck dinner. Here’s the waiter carving up the duck and a photo of us with Aunt Judy and Jeff… so good and ridiculously cheap, too!
So, what next? We’re headed south to Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), where several scenes of the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed. We hear it’s one of the most scenic areas in China… we’ll see!