Spot the Temple

Grimsters

Ex- Temple- see the base of the temple pillar?

  Huguosi Street (护国寺街)is a 600m-long ancient commercial street named after the former Huguosi Temple, which was located there. It has a history of over 800 years when it was first formed in the Yuan Dynasty. I went to see the old hutongs there, with someone associated with the archaeological department of a Beijing university. We had fun spotting the bits of the temple, which was scattered around the hutong. The hutong was built on top of bits of the old temple!

Had a casual chat with a doctor from a major international embassy in Beijing (just a social chit chat, not a consultation!),  and I was relieved to learn that the tiredness that I feel here from the pollution, is normal. She said that she too finds it necessary to get much more sleep, because of the stress that the heavy pollution causes to the body. Her recommendation was to wear a good face mask, and also to make sure to take plenty of Vitamin D, which I do. The lack of sunshine in the winter, plus pollution smog, which cuts down on the available sunlight even further, can cause additional health issues. Hydration is also very important, but she says humidifiers are not recommended. They need to be cleaned regularly and thoroughly, to be effective. Otherwise you’re just created a nice, humid environment for the bugs to multiply. Best to just drink plenty of water, because the hydration needs to be inside.

Even by Beijing standards, the pollution yesterday and today is absolutely appalling- “Hazardous” according to the index. I’m turning in early tonight! 

Hullo clouds, hullo sky!

 

First blue sky day in Beijing. It was nice to be able to see the clouds and the sky again! It was windy today, which was probably why the smog cleared up. I also watched the Australian Open semi-final (Maria Sharapova  vs Li Na) on CCTV 5. Li Na is playing really quality tennis under her new coach, Carlos Rodriguez, and thumped Sharapova 6-2, 6-2. The CCTV commentary  during the match was most enthusiastic about Li Na’s improvement, and rightly so. But I had a niggling thought that something vital was missing during CCTV’s live commentary, and then the penny dropped- there was no commentary on Sharapova’s game at all, even her great shots.

The Sepulchral Glamour of The Opposite House

 The Magic Red Cupboard- bottom left for the FT

In Beijing, international newspapers are usually found in international hotels. However, such hotels are a little hard to come by, near where I live, and unfortunately, I happen to be hopelessly addicted to the FT Weekend.

CW casually mentioned that the café at The Opposite House, which is down the road from where I live, offers the FT Weekend for browsing. Wonderful news!

 

 Modern Art

 This impressive hotel has a most unusual interior, with melodramatic lighting and a sepulchral ambience not unlike a cross between an Ang Lee and a Tim Burton movie set. Pride of place in the hotel were enormous sculptures of two unborn babies, shrouded in red netting. I think they call it Modern Art.

 

Being a real philistine, I ignored the beguiling babies and went in desperate search of the café. I rather naively assumed that since the hotel’s café offered the FT for browsing, it must be for sale at the hotel too.  A Kind Lady from the hotel front desk was most bemused by my queries about the FT, and led me a Magic Red Cupboard, which she then opened to reveal a stash of FT newspapers. Wow! She gave me the weekend edition for free, and I promised that I’d read it at the hotel café, which I dutifully did. Btw, the café serves an excellent cappuccino.

La Ba Festival

My breakfast- La Ba porridge

Yesterday was La Ba Festival (腊八节), which is a traditional Chinese festival that commemorates the Buddha's enlightenment at the age of 35. It isn't a festival that it usually celebrated in the south of China, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn about it! We had the traditional La Ba porridge for breakfast. It’s very tasty, and made from more than 10 different kinds of grains. 

Wangfujing

 

Going to the food street in Wangfujing was brill. But I decided to pass on the deep fried scorpions, starfish and cicadas!

 Bingtanghulu, yummy!

传统北京小吃, 当时和现在 Traditional Beijing Snacks, Then and Now

Then

Now

我们昨天去护国寺小吃，吃北京经典小吃。这个小吃店是北京的老字号，约有三百年的历史。“字号” 这个词不一般不用来形容现代的企业，是指历史悠久的品牌。店里的品种很全，价格也公道, 许多老爷爷、老奶奶，在店里喝着豆汁（发酵的豆饮料－ 需要习惯后才能喜欢… … ，吃着焦圈（小，圆，炸油圈－看照片）！

 Yesterday, we went to “Hu Guo Si Snacks”, to try traditional Beijing snacks. This snack shop is an Beijing “Old Store Name” (“老字号”-lao zi hao), with more than 300 years of history.  An “Old Store Name” is a term that isn’t usually used for modern businesses; it refers to brand with a very long history. Great variety in the store, great prices, and plenty of old uncles and old aunties there drinking their Dou Zhi (a kind of fermented bean drink- definitely an acquired taste… …) and eating their Jiao Quan (a small, round, deep fried dough ring-see photo)！

北京的小吃包括民间小吃和宫廷小吃。民间小吃是老百姓爱吃的，比如说豆汁 焦圈 、什么的。老北京吃早餐的时候，都是一口焦圈儿一口豆汁儿 （在新加坡，就是一口咖啡，一口油条！）小窝头、豌豆黄，就是宫廷小吃。据说都是当年慈禧太后喜欢吃的。

Dou Zhi- an acquired taste

Traditional Beijing snacks include ordinary snacks eaten by regular folk, and imperial snacks. Ordinary snacks include Dou Zhi, Jiao Quan etc. When the Old Beijingers have breakfast, they like to have a bite of Jiao Quan, and chase it with Dou Zhi （in Singapore, it’s a bit of You Tiao, and chase it with coffee!). Imperial snacks include little maize dumplings, and pea cake. These were supposed to be snacks that the Empress Dowager Cixi was fond of eating.

不是你童年的棒子面 (Not the grits of your childhood)

Grits, Chinese style!

 这是“面茶”， 可不是“面条” ＋ “茶”！是棒子面，加芝麻酱 （那个黑色的液体，漂浮在棒子面上面）。不错，可是有点油。

 This is “Flour Tea”, no it isn’t “flour” + “tea”! It’s cornmeal flour, with black sesame sauce (that black liquid floating on top of the cornmeal). Not bad, but a bit oily. 

Auf Wiedersehen, Kamelhaar Socken!

 Curses! Carrying a new local vacuum flask this morning, its bottom decided to give up on me, did a plummet to the floor, shattering into lots and lots of tiny pieces of glass, and spilling hot water everywhere. Probably not an example of 6 Sigma manufacturing. Would it hurt to dab on more glue in the inside?

Rather fortuitously, I happened to be padding around in an old pair of German camelhair socks, which were very thick and quite comfy. They did a brilliant job of shielding my feet from all those shards of glass that exploded on floor. Needless to say, now it’s time to say goodbye to the socks!

I’ve been strenuously avoiding made in China milk, but it looks like made in China portable vacuum flasks are suspect too. Speaking of milk,  only a few days ago, the local supermarket carried rather a lot of  UHT “100% pure New Zealand milk”,  but someone’s just bought the lot, even though there’s lots and lots of fresh domestic milk in the chiller section.

Was also going to sally forth today and look for the FT Weekend, but looking out of the window, the weather seemed to have acquired an extra piquancy that certainly wasn’t around yesterday.  Good thing I declined the invitation to climb the Great Wall this weekend, too.

 The view outside my apartment, circa 11am on 13 Jan

Asia One reported that this weekend in Beijing, the pollution was “worst on record”, 30-45 times above recommended safety levels, and residents were advised to stay indoors.

Hence I decided to stay in today too. Next week, time to use again my nifty Totobobo mask- invented by Singaporeans, made in Singapore, comfy, looks cool to wear, what more could I ask?

First week in Beijing

 Hello! Today I make my triumphant beginning in blogging. What jolly Beijing adventures shall I document here?? Hmmm. I’m still a new bug at this blogging stuff, so I’ll have to learn along the way. Heeding the suggestions of J and Dl, I’d set up my strong vpn before I left for Beijing, but spent a week being thoroughly mystified why it didn’t work in China. Belatedly discovered that the Great Wall of China has been assiduously blocking foreign vpns, blogspot, FB, and seditious materials like the NYT. But thanks to the timely technical support team at vpn (it really was 24 hours service!), who tweaked my setup, now I can blog, and the www is available to me! Hurrah! Let joy be unconfined.

My language school is excellent, and lessons are hugely enjoyable.

Everyone has been talking about the Southern Weekend newspaper (南方周末)， which as one Beijing friend explained, is exceptionally popular because of the quality of its investigative journalism. We are looking for “the truth”, my friend explained. I read some of its articles, and was pretty impressed. Pollution, water issues, the exploitation of the hukou system etc.

Chilled out at Starbucks at historic Qianmen, which is south of Tiananmen Square, before heading off for dinner last night, and was quite tickled by faux Chinese teahouse façade of the Starbucks joint. Dinner last night was at Liqun Beijing Duck Restaurant （利群烤鸭店）, at Qianmen, with Dl and his journalist chums. Funny that a famous restaurant should be in the middle of a crumbling hutong in Qianmen!