DECEMBER 18 2013. Beijing

Greetings from the Hutong in Beijing. 11:30 pm

I trust all is well with all of you and that those of you on the West Coast are enjoying very moderate temperatures. It’s in the low 20s tonight here in Beijing; was about 35 during the day. My wardrobe is interesting but more about that either later in this email or over the coming days. Let’s just say, I’m doing OK.. but at night it’s pretty cold.

A little more about the Orchid Hotel on the Baociao Hutong. It’s really quite charming and must be delightful in good weather as there are two roof decks – one where they typically serve breakfast, and the other for lounging — and lots of vines that must be green in spring. But in the winter you need to go down the narrow open wooden staircase and into the little “lobby” and then outside and upstairs again because they keep the breakfast room closed so as to keep the heat in. When we arrived last night we received a “welcome box”.. a really nice bamboo box.. In it were post cards showing the history of the hutong area, a map (with surprisingly good graphics, information about restaurants nearby) the password for Wi-Fi, and a cell phone with charging cords. The phone is programmed to call the hotel so that if guests get lost you just push the button and it calls the hotel and they find you. We thought this was very clever, but we haven’t used it yet. We’re finding our way quite well.

We had breakfast at the hotel. They are very clever about describing their breakfasts; either someone is in advertising or they should be. We shared the poached eggs with spinach and the pancakes. They did have congee but we passed. Then we headed out to see the Hutong area and also to find a high elevation where we could get an overview of the area.

We headed to the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. Paid for our tickets which were checked by about four people at different points, and attempted to walk through the “security x-ray machine” but no one was there so we just kept going. Climbed the very steep (no landing) 60 stairs with 12 ” risers followed by 10 very steep stairs.. all in all equivalent to walking up and down a 7 story building. Unfortunately the view from the top was not very good for photography since they have a lot of fences and it’s impossible to really see much through the lens. But we got to the top in time to catch part of the drum performance. Mike then climbed to the top of the Bell Tower, but I opted to walk the streets. Good decision, since the view was about the same, I heard.

We combed the little streets of the hutong walking down alleyways. People were mostly friendly.

At around 2 we headed for Mr. Shi’s Dumplings where we shared 15 wonderful dumplings complemented by hot tea (honey grapefruit tea for me and coconut milk tea for Mike). Then we walked some more and later decided to take the metro just to check it out, getting off at a random stop. We purchased our tickets and headed down to the tracks. We went two stops and got out near the Lama Temple. But after climbing the stairs from the platform we could not use the exit turnstiles as they are set to the station you indicate when you purchase the ticket in the machine. We had no clue which station we had selected. So the little buzzer on the turnstile kept beeping, but no one seemed to care.. We stood near the beeping turnstile expecting someone to come to either reprimand us or help us; but no such luck. We spotted someone in uniform and tried to explain our dilemma (with no possible language capacity).

Anyway either out of frustration or luck or because this happens often, the woman pushed some buttons and off we went. It turns out that the train station is literally under the temple. We opted to walk around this new area instead of visiting the temple. It’s a somewhat yuppified hutong area, but many of the hutong buildings are fairly new or so over-renovated that it’s hard to know. We had seen this in Shanghai some years ago — new buildings attempting to create the feeling of older buildings. Very upscale restaurants and boutiques. We then took the train back to Goulou — experienced and without any mis-steps.

A little note on the global economy — no one seems to take our “American” credit cards. I assume that very upscale restaurants, hotels, and shops take them.. but for now, we are on a cash economy.

Got back to the hotel at about 5:00 to do some work that needs to be finished before the end of the year…. and at about 9:30, we walked about a mile to a restaurant called Dali (Szechuan).. Turns out it is a fixed meal.. with a zillion “courses” or dishes — each coming one at a time by a waiter who described each dish in a single word: “tofu,” “mushrooms,” “broccoli,” “chicken,” “fish”.. etc. While it could have been that it was late and he was anxious to leave or that he only knew those few words in English.. or he was just not very social. Anyway, the food was great.. one dish at a time until the table was completely covered. There was a large group of Chinese having dinner as well — maybe an office party.

Walked back — about 20 degrees… and was very glad to enter our rather toasty room.

Now for the fashionistas in the email list.

Packing was a nightmare.. But thus far I’m living in the Uniqlo HeatTech tights and turtlenecks, worn under leggings and another turtleneck, vests, scarves, my down coat (at night) and my wool jacket by day, fur lined boots, a fur hat (I brought two with me — one is totally fake but adorable and the other is a real rabbit hat that I got when I lived in Finland about 30 years ago and is in miraculously great shape; I saved it more as a souvenir but now it’s coming in useful and would cost about 50 times more than what I paid for it.) My basic color scheme is black, black, black and black (as is Mike’s), but I brought a wide array of accessories in color.. so I’m faring OK.. Mike is just in black.. very continental. I may switch to a skirt for today when we move from the Hutong/Orchid to the snazzy Raffles Hotel near Tiananmen Square.

That’s it.. Not sure there’s much else to say. We’ll relocate after breakfast, walk around Tiananmen Square and then Mike is actually headed to give a lecture (I believe at Tsinghua University). I’m not going, so I’ll get to bop around a bit more.. (I had considered contacting one of the universities here to do what Mike is doing, but I never got around to it. Sort of glad — one more thing to deal with)

Shi Pei (I think this is goodbye)

Fern

PS- We’ll be in Beijing until the 22nd then we fly to Xining overnight and catch the train to Lhasa. We arrive in Lhasa around midnight on the 24th. Train is about 27 hours.