YuanYuan is REALLY slow!

Hello again from Beijing! Right now I am sacrificing my lungs to give this update: they smoke EVERYWHERE in Beijing and right now there are some folks behind me that are smoking up a storm and my throat/eyes are going nuts from allergies :( TYPE THROUGH THE PAIN.......

 

In bullet form, again:

 

-After my last update, we went and played pool. Nothing much to update there, except alot of people had professional pool gloves and still sucked. Oh, Chinapeople.

 

-Huay and Jerry went to the place right across from Papa Dong's and got their haircut. I was all about it bc I was like dude, guys haircuts are super cheap and take like 10 minutes. Buzz buzz and you're in and out. Ummmmm....... apparently in Beijing the former is correct but not the latter. So what Jerry keeps saying and what I've noticed is that 'labor' is cheap... so, when you pay for a service, you get the FULL service. They put something in their hair (which I later realized was shampoo) but they weren't over the sink... they shampooed their hair right in the barber chair! So I was like ok they're just saving time. Oh no no no. They shampooed and massaged their hair (I guess making sure they killed the lice??!?! I don't know) for about 15 minutes. I kid you not. Then they rinsed. Then Huay sat there for about 20 minutes while Jerry got his hair cut. I mean, these guys are METICULOUS! Then it was finally Huay's turn. Jerry went and paid 50 Yuan... for BOTH HAIRCUTS! People, that is like 7 American dollars. For real. Absolutely ridiculous (this place actually looked like a legit salon, too)

 

-I was bored out of my mind for an hour while we were there and I could tell they were eyeing my hair. But I don't think they would know what to do with curly hair and I'd like to see them shampoo MY hair without a sink! Good luck! Plus I can hear Mum (btw for my UTSW friends, I don't ever call my mom "Mom" - dunno why) saying "don't let them cut/shampoo your hair! it will fall out!" For reals Mummy, I agree.

 

-Random note: I have seen very few whiney/screaming/crying babies/kids here. I wonder why? Anyone venture a guess? They just seem so content. Maybe it's because their parents let them walk everywhere and they have somewhat freedom to do as they please. Maybe.

 

-It smelled like Nair in the barbershop (I made lots of notes in my journal there bc I was so bored)

 

-Oh and after they cut both the boys' hair, they washed it again. And blow dried it. Wtf.

 

-After, we went home and went with Papa Dong to eat...... DONKEY!!!!! My dear friends and family, I am a donkey-eater and damn proud of it. That stuff is sooooo gooooooooood. It's like the most tender beef you ever have eaten but so much more flavorful. It's served (in a hole in the wall shop that Matt would definitely approve of!) in a piece of bread (that quite possibly.. no I'm sure is fried) and it's pretty much up there with duck as far as I'm concerned. It's on my mental list of things to eat again this last week before we leave.

 

-The next day (Friday) we headed to Behai park, which is one of the imperial parks in Beijing - truly beautiful. However, we didn't realize that in addition to charging us an entrance fee, they were charging us to enter every building. Since we were just going to take pictures of the outside, we decided to grab a paddle boat and go on the outside of the park and just enjoy the weather.

 

-There were three options: the paddle boat, the row boat, and the battery powered boat. I was like oh come on let's just do the paddle boat no bigs. Huay's still limping btw, so he could only paddly with one foot (it wasn't helpful, sorry Huay). But we totally wanted to be able to sing "I'm on a boat" and have it actually be true (Affy, you're going to have to fill in Mum and Daddy on this one, it may still go over their heads). I had flip flops on too :) Pictures to come.... We got really freakin tired of paddling and really regretted not spending that extra 20 Yuan  for the battery powered boat. This 3 year old was steering one of those near us and I coulda sworn she had a look on her face that said, SUCKAAAA!

 

-After the park we went to the Beijing zoo. I wanted to see me some pandas. But we needed lunch, so when we got dropped off we saw a hot pot place, and it was on my list of things to eat, so we decided to hit it up. This was my first time with hot pot (we never went in Dallas!)!!! Omggg it was delishhhh!! I was nervous to put the food in, and I got a few noodles stuck to the fire, but all in all it was delicious and best of all CHEAP!

 

-Oh funny part: I needed to go to the bathroom and H/J said it was over in the corner. I started walking and I guess I had a confused look on my face bc one of the waiters just pointed without saying a word to me. So I went in the direction he pointed and I guess looked still confused bc I got another waiter who just pointed me straight to the bathroom. Geeez, is it that obvious I'm a foreigner? :) Besides, I can say toilet!!!! (oh now I can say, where is the toilet. and where is the zoo. and do you have ice cream?)

 

-So I think some people might be too used to other people doing things for them, ie cleaning up after them. No one really cleans up after themselves here and there's lots of littering. But there are also lots of ppl picking up recycling and trash.. I guess for money or it's their job. Hard to say. ANYWAY.....

 

-We were looking at something (birds, maybe.. they were weird looking) and in the middle grassy area (the cages were in a circle) I see a kid squatting with his mom in front of him. Then I noticed his pants were down. And I was like surely he's not......... oh wait, there it is. He did his business (#2, we saw the proof on the ground) right there in the middle of the zoo where tons of people could see him. His mom pulled his pants up and they were off, not even batting an eyelash at the mound laying on the ground. I mean, the animals shit all over their cages, so surely everywhere is fair game! I don't usually associate squatting kid with going to the restroom, but now......

 

-ALSO! Most little kids (walking age but less than talking age?) have these odd pants where... there is a slit in the back! Their little booties are just hangin out. Apparently, it's for situations like this. To easily poo wherever they need to. To the parentals: maybe ya'll shoulda raised me in China. Then, whenever we got to the mall (I always used to say I didn't have to go at home but I saw the mall sign and suddenly needed the restroom) ya'll could just tell me to pop a squat under a tree. Yeesh!!!

 

-In true Team China fashion, we decided to laze around the zoo and see what we could find. We weren't in a hurry to get somewhere, so we just walked around to see what we could eat. We stopped at a boba place (Affy I thought of you!!! And how much I hate those things and how much you freakin try to get me to like them. I was going to get one in your honor but it was flippin expensive and I realized how much I hate them. Sry.) After about 20 minutes of being there, we realized...... every single other table had a COUPLE at it. Pretty sure this was a 'romantic' hot spot for couples. Yesss then there was me Jerry and Huay. We saw some 'white' (aka non Chinese) kids about our age walk in after we were leaving, and we were joking that we shoulda told them it was too expensive. I mean, it was good, and by expensive I mean, 28 Yuan or 4 American dollars. That is soo expensive for here :) I had a honey pumpkin teapaccino, whatever that is (it was good).

 

-We started wandering some more and saw this little shop that was selling cameras and other sorts of convenience shop goodies. Often, with shops selling merchandise like that, that isn't necessarily the biggest sellers, they'll have some food up front (bc people, especially us, always want to eat). He had some lamb on a stick. Um, yes please! We got one each, started walking away. (they were 2 Yuan each.... omg!) We finished and realized, holy crap that was REALLY good, and just turned around and walked back to get some more.

 

-Not to mention they were playing BACKSTREET BOYS (I want it that way) at the store next door. Of course we started singing (I was channeling Denty and singing and dancing, or more like, as my UTSW friends would say, interpretive dancing) and people were so weirded out that we knew the words to this 'strange' song! (You'd be amazed at how many places play strange American songs.. like Elvis?)

 

-We sat right outside on the curb and there was this little girl that was stealing furtive looks at me, so I waved at her about 4 times until she finally decided it was ok to wave back, and got really excited. How precious.

 

-We started walking more to get a cab and we heard music. Music? And dancing? Of course we're going to go check it out! There was this huuuuge plaza and tons of people were out doing different things, which I will list below :)

 

-Roller blading lessons. I'm talking roller blading lessons Chinese style. They had skating outfits and all the protective gear and these kids were 3-10 years old. They had cones set up in a circle AND THEY HAD COACHES. With whistles! Omg.. this one little girl fell down. She had to have been about 3-4 years old. Her coach came over and screamed (well it sounded like screaming to me, but Jerry said it was reprimanding more like) something to her. She said, "Get up! GET UP! I told you not to do that so get up!" Poor girl had fallen into the splitz and lost her balance, and that was her fault? But dude, the little girl slowly propped herself up (I don't know how, she was so weighted down with padding!) and kept going.... WITH NOT A TEAR IN SIGHT! Wow! It was heartless but amazing.....

 

-Other kids were skating around, some were flying kites... and lest you think that is boring, I really cannot convey to you how high these kites were. Even with full zoom, we could not get the kites on our cameras, THATS how high they were. They had these intense wheels with tons of string so that it could go that high. When the Chinese do something, they do it up big. Why fly a kite 20 feet above you when you can fly a kite 2000 feet above you? Duh.

 

-Two old guys were playing some old Chinese instruments that we think were some version of the trumpet. Later on we realized they were practicing for an ensemble they were in, complete with drums and all sorts of other equipment, and a FAN DANCE! All these ladies... young and old (the old ones were really groovin) had a fan in one hand and a hanky in the other and were doing a dance across the plaza to the cool music. Some guys were groovin in there too. So cool!

 

-So we started noticing that there were more and more dance groups popping up as the evening went on. We (Jerry) asked a police officer what was going on, and he said that since there isn't much entertainment in this area, the local communities get to together at this plaza and dance. Some people are professionals and give lessons. Some are free and some aren't. And some freestyle themselves (pictures to come.. and video!)

 

-One group was doing what looked like traditional Chinese dancing.

 

-Another had some um, metro looking guys (who could REALLY shake their bum!) with some ladies doing dances we've heard of, like the cha cha cha. Their warm up was hilarious, they were just moving their neck up and down and their shoulders up and down to this song called "Sex Grind." No one blinked an eye to the words -- no one could understand! They moved on to Ricky Martin (here we go! ole ole ole! go go go! ole ole ole!) Once again we sang along and got confused/amazed looks that we knew the words. I was getting more stares than usual bc I couldn't help but start to dance myself. If only I had my girls with me...... we'd break it down!

 

-Oh, this was a first: Chinese baby with a slit in the front AND the back. I saw his youknowwhat just floppin around while he was running. Luckily, I'm a baby doctor. And luckily, the Chinese are used to it. I felt a little embarassed for him..... will this scar him for life?

 

-It was funny bc some of the groups were trying to play their music louder than the others... and some were drawing larger crowds than others.

 

-We saw the same group of 'white' kids that we saw at the Boba tea place. We decided to go and talk to them. They were college students from Wheaton College outside of Chicago (Max probably knows where that is?) and they were studying history here for a month, and knew absolutely NO Chinese. They stumbled upon this place like we did. And they actually hit up the same places we did on the same days, but we didn't see them -- we notice all the non-Chinese (if you see a white person say yeeeeeaaaayyyyyyaaaahhhh - seriously if you haven't seen that leprechaun video you need to. I reference it alot)

 

-One of the girls was asked to dance by this old Chinese man - they were doing this dance that we had seen earlier at the Behai park - it looked like classical dancing with a Chinese twist. It was so cute, him trying to show her the steps without her understanding what he was saying.

 

-Finally, we had gotten our fill of our NEW favorite place in Beijing, and decided to go home. Dinnertime with Papa Dong! We went to this little hole in the wall place (seriously, those are the BEST) across from the apt again. This place was kinda dirtier than most.. there were piles of edamame peels (Rita, I thought of you! They didn't have salt but it was pre-marinated in some oil and salt maybe and it was totally delicious) and piles of mushrooms? everywhere.. I didn't ask but gingerly protected my purse from damage. We commenced eating...

 

-There was one dish that Jerry refused to say what it was till we ate it. It had a funny flavor but wasn't bad. It was kidney. I'd eat it again but I won't go seek it out. We talked for a few seconds about where the funny flavor might come from but then decided against any further inquiry. Especially if we didn't want to see the kidney I already ate :)

 

-We're just munching along, and all of a sudden, the entire table behind us turns and looks at our table. There were two little girls, a mom and dad, grandma and grandpa. Huay and I were facing the table and we were like, what just happened? But this was a different kind of staring.... they were partially smiling! So I welcomed it and smiled and waved at the little girls. Their faces lit up and they got really giddy. I'm not sure what happened but I think their mom said something to Jerry, and he said they wanted to practice their English. So I started talking to them, asking them what their names were. Angela and Jenny. Their English was quite good! Vocabulary was limited but pronunciation was slightly better than Jerry's :) :) (he's gonna love that I said that)

 

-After a few words, the girls were hooked. So I whipped out the Chinese chess set we bought (for about 11 Yuan) and asked them to help me play. Jerry knew how to play so it was me and the girls against Jerry. Of course Jerry was ruthless (I don't know how to play but I could tell) and his dad told him to let them freakin win! (it's hilarious the way those two sass each other.. I don't know what they're saying but I love trying to guess by their gestrures and facial expressions and inflections) They had this hacky-sack looking thing and we decided to abandon chess for hacky sack. We went outside the shop.......

 

-Sidenote. There was this group of 4 guys that were WASTED. I mean, one guy was so red and could barely keep his eyes open. They had been playing drinking games (so we figured out) and they came outside around the same time we went to play hacky sack. I have NO idea what they were saying (the boys couldn't translate fast enough, all four were talking at once) but I was a little creeped out. They were about 30 or 40 and were 'playing around' with the little girls, but if I were their mom, I woulda told them to buzz off and go home. Anyway......

 

-Jenny's cousin was Angela, and Jenny's mom and Grandma came outside to talk with us (err, talk Chinese to Jerry and Huay). Apparently the whole family was fascinated by me and thought I was pretty (or as Huay put it, all of China thinks I'm bangin! Spink....) I think it's just because they haven't seen anyone like me before (my hair was curly, too). It was really very flattering, and the girls were just too precious.

 

-Next thing I know, Angela puts a slap bracelet on my arm! She said it was a gift for me. I was floored, I didn't know what to say... she had been wearing this bracelet at the restaurant, and I'm sure it meant alot to her. Jenny shot off to her apartment because she wanted to give me something too. I really didn't want anything from them and most of all I didn't want them giving me their precious belongings!! I had nothing to give in return (I had plenty in my suitcase, surely they'd love anything from me...) Jenny returned with this little ghost stuffed animal that you can stick on your window. They were too adorable and I didn't want them to be sad, so I accepted. They didn't want to let us go and caught up with us a few times as we were walking back. I got their email address to send pictures when I get back to the States. SO ADORABLE!!!!!!

 

 

 

Ahhhh this is so long. Today was pretty boring. Jerry got some suits. We went to the Forbidden City, nothing exciting to report there (we got some cool pics). Got to hang out with Jerry's cuz. OH ANDDDDDDDDDD..... we FINALLY found Hooter's! We've been asking and asking but no one has any idea what Hooters is! I mean think about it, it's a euphemism for boobs, and I'm sure they have their own words for boobs in Chinese. But when we were driving right now in a cab to find this internet cafe, we all simultaneously saw the Hooters and shouted, HOOTERS!!!!! I think we scared our cab driver.... lol! But we were really excited. I'll report back on the boobage or lack of boobage at Hooters Beijing.

 

Tomorrow: Hang out with Huay's uncle.... maybe get some suan nai (the delicious yogurt drink that I'm obsessed with)

Monday-Wednesday: Flying to Xian to see the Terracotta soldiers (omg I've been looking forward to this for so long, since I saw the replica in Moody Gardens on some field trip way back when!!)

 

May not get an update til later..... We miss everyone soo sooo much! Just one more week!

 

Oh, my jet lag finally went away! It's the evening and my eyes aren't drooping so much I fall asleep every 5 minutes! Yesssss!! Mummy & Daddy, look forward to me sleeping for a whole week when I get back.. apparently I don't adjust well to jet lag :) and I think it's worse on the way back.

 

 

LOVE FROM TEAM CHINA

L J H