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Published: October 22nd 2009
Olympic Park
As I type, we are sitting in the pitch black common area of our hostel. Construction on our street knocked the power out at about 8am this morning, and we just arrived back after dinner to find the power still out. So here we all sit, one guy strumming softly on a guitar, three candles burning on the tables…almost like camping, if we had some marshmallows! This will be our final post from Beijing, as we will be heading to the train station in a few hours to catch our overnight train down to Xi’an. It will be about a 12-hour ride, covering over 800 miles, and we’ll arrive around 9am tomorrow morning. While we’re excited to continue or journey, we’re sad to leave Beijing, just as we started to feel at home here.
Yesterday was an incredibly lazy day. The only highlight of our day was finally getting in touch with a friend-of-a-friend who lives here in town. She warmly invited us to her apartment (in a beautiful 30-story condo on the east side of the city) for lunch and cooked up a feast, then we sat around and shared travel stories for a while (she is
a journalist and travel writer). After lunch, we headed back to the hostel, as Jeremy was developing a sore throat and didn’t want to be out in the wind. I too stayed in the rest of the evening, ate dinner downstairs, and hit the sack early.
This morning we awoke early, and thankfully Jeremy was feeling much better. We packed up and checked out, leaving our bags in the left-luggage room here at the hostel. Today was much warmer and not nearly as windy, and once again brilliantly sunny. Our first stop was (finally) the 2008 Olympic Park, home to the National Stadium (aka “The Bird’s Nest”), Aquatic Center, and a host of other Olympic venues. It was gorgeous!! I hate to keep comparing things to Disney, but it was perfectly manicured and futuristic like the front section of Epcot. The Bird’s Nest was INCREDIBLE, one of the most unique and interesting buildings I’ve ever seen. And enormous!! I think we spent a couple hours just wandering around inside and out. The Olympic district is filled with amazing architecture and pristine landscaping - it was a real pleasure to take it all in. We even stumbled upon a huge
praying mantis; we affectionately named him “Manny.”
Lunch was (finally) Peking duck that Beijing is so famous for. It is carved table-side for you and served with rice crepes, cucumbers, and soy sauce to make your own little duck-roll-ups. Delicious!! Like rich buttery chicken. After lunch we headed to the Silk Market, which should be called Haggle-and-Grab-and-Annoy-and-Irritate Market, because that’s a more accurate description! Six floors, with hundreds of booths on each floor, filled with knock-off designer clothes, purses, silk, musical instruments, jewelry, chopsticks, Buddhas, electronics, and any other junk you could possibly want. Jeremy rather enjoyed the haggling process; I, on the other hand, detest it. Few things make me more uncomfortable than warring over the price of something and having fifty people at any time up in my face, “You want jacket? Come, just look, just look. No buy. Just look.” A few even grabbed our arms as we went by, which I didn’t particularly appreciate. But, we took it in stride, and I scored a really pretty jade flower necklace (Jeremy helped haggle - thanks honey!!).
Since we missed it last night, after shopping we headed back to Wangfujing Night Market to try some more
bizarre foods. Our first daring adventure was sea urchin! The cook pulled the bottom layers out to reveal something akin to fish roe (it could have been roe, for all we know!). The taste and texture can best be described as polenta soaked in sea water. It’s not an offensive taste, but not exactly something you’d want seconds of either. Jeremy tried the fried snake skin, which was fatty and really had no flavor at all (I tried a taste and wasn’t really impressed either). We opted to pass on the lamb testicles and sheep kidney…instead went for some vegetable dumplings, fried pumpkin cakes (YUM!) and more roasted garlic oysters. The beautiful thing is that we got all this food for probably less than $10. Ah, Beijing.
So, those were all our final hours in Beijing…we are soon to catch a cab to our train station. Catch you guys from Xi’an in a day or two!!
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Uncle Steve
non-member comment
MMmmm... Crickets on a stick, my favorite!
Glad to hear you made it to China and are having a good time. Thanks for the link to your Voyage Blog... I'll keep an eye on it to follow your adventures. Jeremy, this blog saves me from keep saying to your dad, "Send Picture!" Stay well, safe, and enjoy the once in a lifetime experience! Love you, Uncle Steve