Dan, like from Gossip Girl! [66-68]

My crack-of-dawn train ride back to Beijing went smoothly, though it was a bit lonely after being surrounded by friends the past few days. I must say, though, it felt pretty good being able to travel through China on my own without problems.

Once I arrived in Beijing, I took a subway and then a bus back to my apartment, where I pretty much crashed for the rest of the day. I used that night to make a list of the things I wanted to do for my last week in Beijing. I think I have done a pretty good job so far.

On Thursday, I finally had Peking duck, Beijing’s most popular dish. Katherine called me, and we took the 701 bus to Houhai Lake to find a place with roast duck. It isn’t hard to find and it’s not too expensive. We watched the chef carve and serve the roast duck, which we then put in “pancakes,” added cucumber, scallions and hoisin (Chinese dried plum sauce), wrapped up, and gobbled down. It was DELICIOUS. I can’t believe it took me THIS long to try it.

After lunch we walked over to Nanlougu Xiang, where I immediately spotted something else on my list of things to do – cupping. You may have seen this in movies or on TV, where a Chinese masseuse lights cotton on fire, puts it in an open glass globe, and places the globe on another person’s back, forming a suction and making huge bruises. It sounds painful, and it was at first, but the Chinese believe wholeheartedly that this will eradicate any diseases within your body. I kind of just did it for the badass bruises. Later in NLGX, I finally found a stuffed panda cute enough to become mine. I had been looking for the perfect one all summer, and it took me until now to find it! The best part about it is that its head pops off and the body folds out to form a pillow. Thirteen hour plane ride companion? I think so.

The next thing on my list was to go to the Silk Market. I’ve somehow avoided this tourist trap until now, but certain people (read: my mom) want scarves from China. I didn’t think it could happen, but I actually felt guilty about my stellar bargaining this time. I even got myself a nice trench coat for 200 yuan (US$30).

With a few hours to spare before the subway shut down, I paid one last visit to Friends Café in SOHO. This time there were different episodes on, and I tried a milkshake. I noticed a portrait of the Girl With the Pearl Earring – the same as the book I was currently reading!

On Friday, I woke up early to go do something I had really been looking forward to – go to a water park! And not just any water park – the biggest one in Asia… and it was in the Olympic Watercube – how cool! The 200 yuan ticket included a self-guided tour of the aquatics facilities. It was really cool to be able to sit in the stands and imagine watching Michael Phelps winning one of his eight gold metals. The water park itself was a little bit of a letdown, but only because of the crowds. Initially I wanted to ride the biggest water slides, but those lines took over 30 minutes. After suffering through one of those lines for a 30-second ride, I took to the Lazy River. I’m not sure if Chinese people understand that a LAZY River is supposed to be relaxing, because everyone – not just kids – turned it into more of a bumper-tube course. I also went on several smaller slides and rides that were fun. In one of the lines, I met a Chinese girl named Apple (yes, like Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter) who was on vacation from her university in Hangzhou. It turns out she had seen me earlier in the day and had just now worked up the courage to talk to the mei guo ren. As the title of this blog suggests, she was a big fan of American television and recognized my name from one of her favorite shows. Her English was great, and it was fun to have a friend to spend the rest of the day with.

I had to leave the park to meet Jessie to go try on my suit that I had tailored. The pants fit perfectly, but the jacket was a little too loose, so I will be returning to pick up the finished product Sunday. Jessie also wanted to take me to a Korean place to eat, since Korean cuisine is her favorite. I thought it was good, but kind of wished we had done it barbecue style like those seated around us. Each table had a small grill in the middle where they were barbecuing meat, fish and vegetables. Instead, we had noodles, squid with rice, sushi, and ice cream.

When I got off the bus to head back to my apartment, I ran into Brian and Pang Li heading to the Beer Garden for some pijiu. I said, what the hell, and joined them. It was a fun night, mainly consisting of Brian and I trying to convince Pang Li to apply to spend a semester at UNC. He would have some guanxi with Dean Cole and I there, and I KNOW he would love it.

I am Rachel. I hate serving people. [51-54]

This was my last (full/official) week at work! It’s bittersweet. I don’t know if I will see most of these people that have been so kind and welcoming to me at China.org.cn again. But this also means that I will have about 2.5 weeks to travel around China and do things I want in Beijing one more time! The summer flew by, especially this past week.

On Monday, Annie and I took the subway to Yashow Clothing Market to do one last (maybe the last) souvenir shopping trip. We loaded up on DVDs, Chinese lanterns and wedding envelopes (I’ll get to that later!). I bargained my butt off and was proud of how little I had to spend. We saw one of Keith’s roommates in the market, which further supports my claim that the huge city of Beijing is a small place, and the world, even smaller (if that’s possible).

We had been craving the meal that we ate with Keith and Ithzel at Nanlougu Xiang about a week ago, so we took a bus there and tried to re-create the meal. The restaurant was out of the sweet and sour pork, but everything else was delicious. Chinese food in the States will never be the same.

We walked around a bit in Nanlougu Xiang, also, sadly for our (probable) last time. I picked up a “Save the Pandas” sticker because, duh, I love pandas and want to save them all (for myself).

Tuesday was my dinner with Jesse, my new Chinese friend from the rock show. I asked her to pick out a Sichuan restaurant since I have been told it is spicy food and I hadn’t tried it yet. It was great to see Jesse again and the food was good. Since being in China, I had always wanted to eat out of one of those huge bowls with chopsticks, and this was my chance. It was a popular Sichuan dish with blood (really.), vegetables, fish and other unidentifiable things. It was better than it sounds. It sure was spicy, but it had “ma la” in it—a numbing agent. It was strange to feel my mouth tingling while I ate. We talked about our favorite foods, sports we liked, American television (she loves CSI: Miami) and places for me to get a suit tailored. The language barrier tested my patience, but all in all, we made it into a pleasant evening (even if we both had our dictionaries out at the table).

Wednesday was another special dinner—Pang Li took Annie and me out to his favorite Beijing noodle place. John came too, and we had a great time. The noodles were out of this world (even better than Mr. Chen’s from Great Wall Fresh!). The restaurant was “old-style” with Chinese opera playing in the background and panoramic scenes of Old Beijing on the walls. It’s not hard to guess where the four of us went after dinner—the Beer Garden. As always, we had a great time there.

On Thursday, Annie and I planned to do a lot since our days are dwindling down. We walked out of the office after work to immediately feel this heavy, uncomfortable humidity that had set in during the day. It made the parts of the evening spent outdoors almost unbearable. Anyway, we decided to have a quick bite to eat outside of WuMart and happened upon a man making steamed dumplings. We ordered one helping each, but they were so delicious that we stayed and each had another. We then experimented with the bus system and took the 87 to the subway station (we usually take the 27), where we took line 4 to Xidan.

Annie wanted to find a Chinese-style straw hat at 77th Street, an underground mall for Chinese locals. We both ended up finding things there, so the pit stop was well worth it. We transferred to line 1 which we took to The Place, a hangout that I have mentioned before (and you might recognize). The huge screen/roof had English and Chinese messages displayed for all to see that people had texted (like at a Major League Baseball stadium).





We then got to our final (and favorite) destination – Friend’s Café in SOHO! The staff was so nice – and they even had nametags that were characters from the show! Our waitress, “Rachel,” was the sweetest. Annie and I will miss this place so much! I got an espresso with whipped cream and a cream-filled “doughnut.” Believe it or not, the same episodes of “Friends” that we watched last time were on again… but they were still funny the second time. We even participated in our own “name the 50 U.S. states in 10 minutes” challenge that Ross and the gang cringe over in one episode. The best news: I got pictures this time!






I will share my last day of work when I get back from Hebei Province next week. Pang Li invited Annie and I to go to his best friend’s wedding on Saturday! It’s such a cool opportunity and should be interesting from the stories I’ve heard about other Chinese weddings.

Trial and error [30-32]

I’m learning a lot about myself by being more or less on my own in a foreign country. One thing I’ve noticed (and those around me have noticed), is that I hate giving up. Especially when it comes to finding a place. I’ve never had a spectacular sense of direction, but I can read a map and judge distance thanks to many years of backpacking and cross country.

That being said, this week has tested my tenacity. On Monday, Annie and I finally went to Friends Café, a nearly identical replica of Central Perk from one of the best, if not THE best sitcom of all time, Friends.

We took two hot and crowded buses to get there but wandered for a while before finding it tucked into the sixth floor of a sleek SOHO building. It was extremely cute, and surprisingly filled with Chinese locals instead of foreigners. It also was the best cup of coffee I’ve had since I’ve been in China (most of the coffee here is instant coffee instead of drip coffee). It was also refreshing to watch TV (Friends, of course) in English and to sit in comfortable chairs (sadly, the famous orange couch was taken by some locals).



We also discovered The Place, a popular mall and hang-out spot. The Place is hard to describe, but I will definitely come back and take more pictures.



The highlight of Tuesday was getting my first article published! See the last post for the link! I took a break from running around Beijing for a day and ran on the treadmill instead.

On Wednesday, the plan for after work was to eat at a Western deli called Bocata and then check out Boat, a bar/club on a boat (!!!) on a river since I won’t be in town this weekend. We took the subway to the Sanlitun area and walked towards Bocata. On the way there, we found a place called “Here” with a really good menu, and since it was late and we were starving, we ate there… at Here. It was amazing. I had a roast beef sandwich with fries (best fries in China… best fries ever?) and a Coke. When we got to Boat, the place was dead. Mental note: Wednesday night is not particularly hopping in Beijing. We ended up walking to Sanlitun and watching a Michael Jackson impersonator and a Chinese girl band over a pijiu.