Back From Beijing: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Hi all. It's Brian here, guest blogging for Katie. We're back from Beijing with many stories to tell! First, I'll start with the good. We picked the perfect time to visit. China is preparing for National Day on October 1st and the preparations were visible on nearly every corner. Armed officers were everywhere, especially near Tienanmen Square. Our visit there was my favorite part of the trip. The square is enormous and very intimidating. More so than any other place we visited, I got the greatest sense there that I was in a Communist Nation. You should have seen the frantic rush to pass through metal detectors to enter the square. There's no such thing as an orderly, single-file line in Beijing. It was every man for himself as people pushed to get through security. If you like your personal space - don't visit.

Another highlight of course was our visit to the Great Wall. Another awe-inspiring sight. This was Katie's favorite. We had a fantastic tour guide. The only bad part - the weather was crummy. It cleared up toward the end of our visit so we were able to get some decent shots. When you consider the rugged terrain and the amount of man-made work that went into the Great Wall, you just can't believe it stretches over 5,000 miles. Think about that? That's well over the distance from San Francisco to New York. Amazing.

Other things we really enjoyed were the Summer Palace, The Temple of Heaven, and The Forbidden City. And despite a lot of stares and requests to take photos with us, the people were very friendly.

In Tienanmen Square

At the Forbidden City

At the Summer Palace

At the Summer Palace

Now for the bad. Our first night there we decided to try out the Wangfujing Avenue "Night Market". It's a block-long row of food vendors yelling at you to try there food. Sure, there were noodles, beef, and other Chinese foods you'd expect. Some of it though, was tough to stomach. Bugs on a stick. Gross. Sheep's Penis. No Thanks. Dog on a stick. Just wrong.

Despite that experience and one night of questionable chicken, we ate yummy food at some good restaurants, including Peking Duck (below).

If you think New York City traffic is bad, you haven't seen anything. Try driving on Beijing streets. Everyone beeps their horns. Nobody follows the rules of the road, if there are any. And everywhere you turn, there's somebody on a bike blocking traffic. I don't know how the taxi cab drivers do it.

I should also mention the smog is really bad. Our eyes were burning the first night and our noses were stuffy most of the time.

Finally, the ugly. Our trip to the Silk Market. 5 floors of pure madness. Multiple vendors trying to sell you fake designer clothes, watches, handbags, you name it. The vendors are extremely aggressive. I made the big mistake of wearing my glasses through the eye glass section. One lady stepped in front of me, told me I needed a new prescription, and tried to rip the glasses of my head. We even saw a fight break out on one of the floors.

Overall, we really enjoyed our visit to Beijing. It was a total culture shock but that was good for us. Now, it's off to Bangkok. Stay tuned...

And we're off!

Sorry no posts since Brian got here, we've been pretty busy. Last night I showed him the over-the-top Orchard Road among other things. We leave for Beijing this morning and return Tuesday night. I'll probably have time to post a few pics on Wednesday before we leave for Bangkok.

Ciao!

Obama on F1

Brian's flight lands in just 2.5 hours and I'm trying to distract myself to keep from thinking about it non-stop.

But instead of packing for China, I just had to share the flyer I think it needs no other introduction than to say that you can see how nuts everyone here is about F1!

Din Tai Fung

Last night Whitney, Amma and I met for dinner at Din Tai Fung, an award-winning Taiwanese restaurant with locations all over Southeast Asia. In 1993, the New York Times ranked DTF one of the world's 10 best restaurants. DTF is well-known for its xiaolongbao or soup dumplings. They're really delicious but you have to be careful when using chop sticks not to punch a hole in them, or else the broth will spill out everywhere.


Here's Whitney assembling our homemade chicken noodle soup. You can see the soup dumplings in their steam tray in the lower left-hand corner.


Here are the dumpling chefs hard at work. I love to watch them make homemade noodles, it's such an art.

DTF is located in one of the shopping centers on Orchard Road. Before dinner, I tooled around another for an hour or so - all 6 floors of it - and discovered a moon cake festival in the lowest level. I had a better moon cake experience here. Apparently there are two types: the traditional kind like I had in the office and another variety known as snowskin. They look something like this, and are much lighter.


My favorite flavor? Cranberry! My least favorite? Durian! It was my first time trying anything durian and I was not a fan. The worst part was I thought from the color that it would be mango. It's like the equivalent of thinking something is strawberry when in reality it's sweat sock.

Luckily I had no such disappointments at dinner! Tonight I'm headed to Ilana's for Mexican, which I've been craving for a while. Gotta mix in some Western food here and there, especially before our big trip. By this time next week, we'll already be on a plane back from Beijing!

F1 Fever

I started this relaxing Monday with a long walk along my favorite route, which has become increasingly more difficult to navigate due to F1 preparations. This coming weekend is the Singapore Grand Prix, a Formula One (F1) race with festivities spanning Friday, Saturday and Sunday.



Since Brian and I leave for Beijing Saturday morning, we'll only get to see the excitement from afar. (In fact, I'm trying to figure out where we should dine away from the madness.) As you can imagine, preparations such as building grandstands, blocking off roadways and fencing in some of Singapore's most scenic views with protective barriers have been underway for quite some time now.


A lot of hotels you can see in the background will offer attractive views of the race, and will benefit from profitable food and beverage options for fans. The Fairmont Hotel is offering a 61-course meal (commemorating the 61 laps in the Grand Prix) for 4 at SGD$5000. That's USD $880.50 a person. How could one eat 61 courses anyway?

The race itself takes place at night, so it should be a real sight. Plus, the Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani, the Backstreet Boys and Beyonce are scheduled to perform. All signs point to a crazy event. Crazy under control, of course, because it's Singapore.

As for the rest of this three-day weekend, I've been reading up on our travel destinations, plan to hit up Orchard Road a little later today, and will meet Whitney and Amma for dinner tonight. Then it's back to work for just four more days before "the trip of a lifetime," as Brian has been calling it, begins. I can't wait to see him.

Baba Bling!

Today I met Whitney and her mother-in-law whom she calls Amma (ah-MAH) for a day of window shopping and museum exhibits. After tooling around Orchard Road for a bit, we went to the Peranakan Museum to check out the Baba Bling exhibit (love the name) featuring Peranakan jewelry (spelled jewellry here).

Who are the Peranakans? In the Malay-speaking parts of Southeast Asia, Peranakan means "child of" and is used to refer to people of mixed ethnicities. Most Peranakans are of Chinese origins, though there are others such as the Chitty Melaka (Indian) group.

The nyonyas (women) wore beautiful and colorful kebayas similar to these but of course much more traditional and much heavier. They used often elaborate pieces of jewelry to pin them together and complete their looks.

I thought it was ok to take pictures as long as there was no flash. I only got in one or two before I was corrected. Oops! Doesn't the wallpaper look like Asian Lilly Pulitzer?

Here I am with Amma outside the museum. She lives in Dubai and is visiting Whitney and Josh for a couple of weeks. Really nice lady. Made me miss my mom today.

After the museum we walked down to Robertson Key and relaxed by the river. Then we walked over to Chinatown to check out the Mid-Autumn Festival decorations. Tonight I'm just relaxing, watching The Nanny Diaries on TV and reading travel books in preparation for our big trip that begins this weekend. Yay!

Another three-day weekend

I've really lucked out on holidays. During my stay abroad, there was only one in the U.S. (Labor Day) while I'm getting to take advantage of three in Singapore. Monday is Hari Raya Puasa, the Malay term for the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from eating, drinking and smoking from dawn until dusk.

A lot of non-Muslims take advantage of the holiday by traveling, but I decided to stay here since Brian arrives in just 5 days! I really wanted to have a chill weekend before we kick of what he's been calling "the trip of a lifetime."

Several my friends in Singapore are Jewish and were celebrating Rosh Hashanah last night, so I decided to it was a good time to see a movie: The Time Traveler's Wife. I really liked the film as well as my popcorn dinner. Movie theater popcorn is universally delicious!

Today I visited Whitney's hairdresser, Cedric, for a much-needed trim and highlight. His salon is at the base of the Gotham Building I posted a photo of a week or two ago. It's also really close to Arab Street and since the crazy-hard rain that soaked me on my way into the salon had let up, I decided to walk over and explore the area a bit more.

Arab Street and the surrounding shop houses are lined with one fabric store after another. There are also many carpet stores.

I didn't buy any silks or fabrics, but I did buy a couple of colorful across-the-shoulder bags as a safety measure for our travels (vs. the omnipresent Dooney & Bourke bag I've been toting). Unfortunately, few places are as safe as Singapore.

Proximity to the salon aside, I also knew that the Arab Street area boasted authentic Mediterranean food. I had a yummy vegetable salad and some fresh hummus and pita. It was much lighter than many other types of Asian food, which was a welcome change. I wrote out a couple of postcards while I was there - my first even though I've been in Singapore for two months!

The last time I was in the area, I posted a photo of the Masjid Sultan (Malay for Sultan Mosque) above. Given the holiday celebration, I decided to go inside today.

Non-Muslims can only go into the entrance and not the main prayer area (designated by the carpet) and if you're not sufficiently covered you have to wear this cloak. But isn't it beautiful inside? There were a lot of visitors and worshippers alike.

I received some sad news today. Poppy's older brother, Uncle George, died at home Friday night. I think he was 88 and had been ill recently, but he would often come to holidays at my parents' house. I wish I could be there with Granny K. and Poppy.

On a MUCH lighter note, today is Ilana's birthday, so I think we bunch of us are meeting up later tonight to celebrate.