Blog Blackout

I will try and post some final thoughts on China as soon as I am caught up on things at work and at home. I have some pictures(4000) to sort through as well so please bear with me. Also, Anaba Tea Room wil be hosting a book signing and wine tasting on Nov. 21st. The book is The Complete Idiots Guide To Tapas by Jennette Hurt, and yours truly has two recipes and the cover shot in the book. Admission is $10 and will include free Tapas and wine, so please come. Event begins at 5:30pm. Thanks.

VICTOR

Ladies & Gentlemen, Victor loves his job, he is passionate about the preservation of the Houtongs of which he was a part of when he grew up. His parTICular Houtong was torn down during the Cultural Revolution, and it's obvious it affected him deeply. He had this way of delivering his passion through his speech that was like a machine gun followed by a granade launcher. He'd say things like 'today we are going to visit a place that is like no other in Bejing--------the HOUTONG!!! When he got to the part he would most like to emphasize he would lean in to which ever person was closest to his machine gun sway and deliver the bomb! HOUTONG! It was pure genuine passion and I could have listened to him all day.

Baijia Dayuan

Wow, girls greet you in full Mongolian garb. Beautiful silk dresses, elaborate hats with tassels like roaming billboards, peddeling flowers, butterflies and happiness.

Highlight was light tepura like battered pork spare rib. The rib was short braised in a heavy garlic broth, battered ind fried, simple and delish.

Drinking Tea with JMC

JMC is a god of design he can turn an outdoor craphouse into a Shangri-La. He's impeccably dressed, well-spoken, has a beautiful wife of 30 years. He can tell you what year Cakebread was the best ever. But put him in a room with some tea afficionados and he doesen't kow his eyeball from his pie hole. He is so smooth though that he still comes out looking like a king. I salute you JMC.

Great Wall

Not the best of weather for today. Damp, cool foggy. I guess it is better to look at it as surreal,,, and really that is how this trip has felt. Did I ever think that I would visit China? Could I have ever believed I would stand on the majestic Wall? Did God cloak it's full beauty so I wouldn't weep?

The Chinese have a saying "You are not a hero until you have climbed the Great Wall". I didn't feel heroic at all. I was insignificant...and that felt great.

I went to China and all I got was Tuberculosis

Listen, I'm no doctor but taking a bunch of foreigners to a packed local hospital, standing them in a petri shaped lobby for 15 minutes while you wait to go into a beaker shaped elevator to see a 70 year old woman drop her gown and get acupuncture seem unwise. I may be wrong but isn't that how we lost the Mayans? The cold I thought I had gotten rid of has come back with a vengance. Am I a delicate flower? Maybe, or perhaps I just need a brewed concoction of rhino horn, monkey bone licorice broth. Mmmm monkey bone.

Forbidden City

Now one would think that having a 3 hour long line to view Mao, the Forbidden City would be relatively empty - well you would be wrong. You couldn't throw a piece of popcorn up in the air without it hitting 12 people before landing on the cobblestone. Once you get over the fact that you are not in a theme park, you can't help but fall in love with the culture. I mean thinking you have a sense of history touring your hometown city hall that was built in 1880 really pales in comparison.

Briefly, the Forbidden City was just that - a city filled with nobles that people like me or you weren't allowed to view, unless you were cleaning, building and or painting the place. Oh yeah, they had unics and concubines as well. A side note, contrary to popular belief a unic is not a unicorn with a soft horn.

I know you'd think I haven't eaten yet, not true, and I will devote the next post to food we've eaten thus far...but it's 4 in the morning now, and all we've been doing since we've arrived is try and fit 10lbs of day into a 5 pound bag.