Today I saw a Mao suit

Val and I had a fabulous morning at Beihai Park. We planned to get an early start, in order to check out the morning activities of the locals, and set our alarms accordingly. We rolled out of bed and out the door by 6:30, certain we were too late to get to the park in time (it took about 40 minutes by subway/taxi to get there), but we were greeted by the sight of a elderly Beijing man walking backwards past our building—a sure sign that it was exercise time.

As we walked along the streets, people were lined up at shops’ counters to get their breakfast- various meats and rolls and pastries. I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure a chicken wing is not the best way for me to start my day, so Val and I passed. KFC was open, full of hungry customers chowing down on sandwiches of all sorts. This is 7 a.m., don’t forget.

We arrived at the park and were happy to find that we didn’t miss anything. In fact, we were in the midst of entertainment wherever we went! I have to say that this was the most enjoyable morning I have spent in Beijing. We watched people practice tai chi, flag and fan dancing, tap and jazz dancing, as well as a strange exercise that involves wearing thick gloves and walking on all fours. Not sure what this accomplishes or signifies…

In addition, there were people playing all sorts of games like badminton and kicking this feathered toy, which looked so fun to try.

The park was beautiful and peaceful for the first part of the morning, until more people started to arrive. After we had our fill of the dancing and such, we found a quiet spot by a pond where others were enjoying snacks and naps to plan the rest of our day.

Next stop: the Drum and Bell Towers to the north of Beihai. We climbed the Drum Tower to see the drums being beaten, which was an even steeper climb than the Great Wall (or very close). It was a nice view—had there been no smog—followed by a short presentation of the drums sounding. All of the drums are replicas of the 24 that were beaten in Imperial times, when the civil and military leaders apparently organized their lives around the signals. There is one original drum which was very neat to see; it seemed as if it would fall apart if touched.

After the steep descent (I didn’t fall down!), we grabbed lunch at a little Chinese café near the towers. It was the first spring rolls we had seen in Beijing, and they were fantastic. So fresh and tasty! Val was pretty excited about soy sauce, which doesn’t usually come with meals anywhere here, believe it or not. Also there is no salt or pepper available (unless you’re at a Western restaurant). In addition, I enjoyed some crab dumplings which were pretty good too.

We decided to be super-touristy and take a rickshaw (bicycle with passenger seats or cargo area) around the hutong area we were in. It was fun, but our driver kept stopping at all of these doors that were significant in some way and insisted on taking our photo at each one. Of course, the accompanying signs were written in Chinese so we had no idea what we were seeing. It was on this ride that I saw an old man in a Mao suit, as in a military green, Chairman Mao Zedong, style suit. Wow. What a sight.

My guide book included an interesting walking tour of the Dashilan area, which includes some notable stores dating from the Qing era as well as some great hutong. We were headed in the right direction, but then could not find where exactly the walk started. The book does not list anything in Chinese, only English, so it was kind of difficult…okay, really difficult at times. To help you understand how the hutong system works, picture narrow alley-like streets with no comprehendible signs to indicate where you are or where you should be going. There is also no one around on many of the smaller streets, much less anyone who can speak a word I can understand.

Finally! I found a recognizable street included in the tour! Of course, it turned out to be the last street, the one we were supposed to end up on at the end. We did the logical thing and proceeded to go backward through the route in the book. It worked out great! We saw some fun shops and I bought a piece of celadon pottery to take home. The people in the shop were so nice, and then invited us to have tea. We enjoyed a traditional Chinese tea and learned a lot. The tea was so good!

Since this blog is getting pretty lengthy, I will just tell you about one other notable shop we visited. This was the Tongrentang traditional Chinese medicine company, where you can find anything from shark fins to giant mushrooms to dried lizards and sea horses (among other things I could not identify). Some of the items were very expensive, up to thousands of yuan. It was crazy! Two floors of all kinds of healing elements, and the shop was bustling with customers.

The shop was on a main street near Tiananmen Square and was being prepared for the Olympics. Flowers in planters lined the streets and some heavy-duty street construction was taking place... I wonder if they'll have it done in time?

What a day! And to top it off, I had some coffee-flavored gum that left me craving a latte, as well as some chewy strawberry candy that was like gum but meant to swallow after a little bit of chewing. One other thing you might find interesting was something our Chinese volunteer friends introduced us to, a drink that they call the ‘acid drink’, which tastes like BBQ sauce, no joke. It is refreshing to drink cold, but I won’t lie—I couldn’t finish it. It is very fun to see all of the flavors here for products that we would never consider using at home, like prawn-flavored potato chips. Oh yummy. I am going to make it a point to write more about these foods in the future.

Here’s a quick shout-out to Carah, Liz and Caitlin. Thanks for the call the other night; it was great to hear from you! I have yet to hear any Dave in Beijing, but I'll keep my ears open.