Beijing, China Part 2

Unenthused about being up early Tuesday morning, it ended up turning out to be perfect. Beth and Alison were expected to arrive sometime this morning but I wasn’t exactly sure when. Without even planning it, as Mark and I leave the café I end up seeing Alison and Beth stumbling out of a Taxi. Excitedly I shouted and welcomed the two of them with big hugs. The girls had just arrived form Shanghai via an over night train and where a little out of it but once I told them about the free breakfast the cheered up and gobbled it down. Now that all of us had our morning cup of Joe and breakfast we decided to hit up the Forbidden City for the day.
To our benefit our Taxi driver dropped us off at the back entrance where it was a lot less crowded in regards to getting tickets. It however was intensely crowded inside leaving us very few chances of getting a good quality shot. The day was hot, and the girls were tired, so we found ourselves struggling to really engage in the scenery and history around us. Nevertheless, here is some info on the Forbidden City; it was once home to China’s emperors and holds 800 buildings with 9000 rooms spread out over 720,000 sq meters. I gather the palace received its name do to the simple fact that any an unauthorized visitor would be instantly killed, hence The Forbidden City. (Info given to me by Lonely Planet) We did however make are way through the palace visiting most of the Christmas colored main buildings while popping into the air conditioned gallery rooms to cool ourselves down. Upon walking from the north entrance to the south entrance we managed to work up an appetite and decided to enjoy a leisurely lunch near our hostel.
Intending not to eat too much at lunch but failing miserably we still energized ourselves to go meet Casey (coworker) and Will (friend of Casey’s who lives in Beijing) for dumplings. Since the beginning of meeting Casey she has spoken about her love for dumplings and tonight was the night we were going to finally get freshly made Chinese dumplings. To our benefit, Will’s roommate Bret is dating JoyLin, a Chinese girl, and she happened to know of a great local dumpling restaurant. Since JoyLin was the local, she took it upon herself to order and did a marvelous job at that. We had about 7 different orders of dumplings and each of them were absolutely delicious. After our massive intake of dumplings, Will and Bret took us to a bar they frequent and taught us a Chinese dice game, a bit hard to explain in writing but tons of fun. All of us had a great evening together over dumplings, beer and dice.
Anticipating to be woken up early it came to my surprise when Alison woke us up at nearly 9:30am. The four of us took our time sipping our coffee and eating our breakfast while we chatted over what we wanted to do for the day. After mentioning a few ideas it was decided that we would hit up this massive flea market. Pumped and ready to shop we were quickly let down by how few stands were open. Apparently the Jinsong flea market is best visited on the weekends. With few gift items in our bags we felt it best to return to our hostel and shop in and around the famous Hutong streets. Our hostel sits in the mitts of the Hutong streets and the main street is filled with little boutique shops and local bars. We also found a crowded Chinese restaurant and popped in for yet again a “small lunch.” Regretfully we walked away with stuffed upset bellies.
Doing our best to walk it off we were still all full by the time dinner time came around. Not letting this stand in our way we headed towards the HouHai Lake where we were told of a good Peking Duck Restaurant. Mark’s friends from home eat at this very restaurant nearly two years ago and raved about it, so Mark was determined to find it and try Peking duck. Alison being a lover of Peking duck was very excited and could not wait for dinner. The four of us had a lovely dinner sharing duck feet with spicy mustard, Chinese broccoli, tofu fried egg role, duck dumplings and Peking duck. Why we ordered so much when we were full to begin with was a little absurd but all of it was very good…depending on your taste. As expected Mark wanted to try duck feet so we ordered it and surprisingly both Beth and I agreed to try it. Preparing myself mentally to the fact that it was going to be chewy yet tasty with the mustard sauce I put the whole foot in my mouth and began chewing. Sadly and yet instantly I was grossed out and could not come to swallow the duck foot. On the other hand I am proud to say, Beth did manage to get her one foot down after some time. Mark once again claimed to enjoy it but both Beth and I will forever pass on duck feet again in the future. After finishing off our tasty meal we sat around enjoying our beers while watching a range of different performs put on a show for all of us costumers. The show lasted about 30 minutes and although we were sad it was over we decided it was time to head home. Both Mark and Beth enjoyed their first Peking duck experience, Alison was happy she was eating Peking duck and I was simply happy to be in such good company.
This concludes my blogging for today but I promise to finish the remainder of my week in Beijing tomorrow.