Beijing Visit

We just came back from a short trip to Beijing, a nice ending to the summer vacation. Even the weather was kind to us, sunny a lot of the time, and the pollution not too bad.

Restaurant in Beijing inside the Old Home of Some Ex-Royalty from the Qing Dynasty

Upon arrival, my cousin took us to a special restaurant that is set inside the former home of some Qing Dynasty royalty (the brother of the founding emperor of Qing). There are many different rooms and houses, and some tables are set outside in the gardens as well. It is very neat. All the servers are dressed in Qing costumes and greet people in the Qing way, as if everyone of us were royalty. It was funny. We had a nice meal, including some special palace-style dim-sum with cakes made from different beans. Sweet but not overly so.

The Great Wall

The next morning, we went to The Great Wall at Badaling, which is the most developed section of the Great Wall. I visited another site before when I was in Beijing for business with some of my colleagues, so it was nice for me to see a different section. The Great Wall was definitely the highlight of our trip! It was quite tiring at times to climb some portion of the wall, especially with the crowd and the sun, but the view was completely worth it. I thought it would be boring for kids to just climb and walk, but everyone found it very interesting, just thinking about how it was all built, and imagining the lives of those soldiers patrolling the Great Wall. At the end, we decided it was too much to walk back and took the cable car down instead. It was a nice ride inside the cable car, though short.

After the Great Wall, we had lunch and went to the Summer Palace. It was nice to see some of the palaces and the lake, but my favorite part was probably walking around the lake. It felt very relaxed and peaceful. The next day, we went to visit the Forbidden City. The palaces are all very grand, but we felt sad that the whole place did not seem to be very well looked after. The palace rooms are not opened to the public, and you can only view it from the outside, either through the windows or through the doors. However, you can see layers of dust on the floor, on the furniture, and things just seem to be in a deteriorating state. There are many gift shops and small eateries here just like everywhere else, but with the old buildings and fast-food restaurants, it’s rather incongruous.

Fast Food Restaurant inside the Summer Palace

Summer Palace

Palaces inside the Forbidden City

We all agreed that when we come to Beijing again, we would like to visit other sections of the Great Wall, but not palaces.

 

Electronic Age

We are packing for our short trip to Beijing tomorrow. Sammy has been pretty excited. She creates this song herself, and has been singing it for at least over an hour, “I am going to Beijing tomorrow. It’s going to be fun. It’s an adventure. There is going to be so much joy…” It is so nice to be a kid!

When it comes to packing the electronics that we are going to take with us for just a 4-day trip, we pack the following:

• 2 MacBooks Air
• 1 iPad Mini
• 1 Kindle
• 2 iPhones
• 1 Digital Camera
• Various power chargers for these electronics

To make the computer bag a little lighter, I am leaving the old Apple iPad at home, as well as the little iPod Shuffle. It is pretty ridiculous when you see the number of devices and cords. Gary has said many times, that when he retires, he will have no TVs, no computers, no telephones. To get in touch with him, people can either write him letters (on paper, and sent via the post office), or just drop by and knock on his door. I am not sure how realistic is that. He can’t live without watching footballs, and he’s been watching the matches online! Whether we want it or not, so much of what we do everyday involves electronic devices. It is all the more important to remember that we are human beings, social beings, and not forget to have some real, physical human interactions!

A Spinach Incident

We went to our usual little cafe for lunch as usual. Samantha ordered a French Omelet with Spinach and Ham. In some previous occasions, they did not have spinach, so they put lettuce in as a substitute (and failed to understand why Gary and Sam were upset over the substitution choice). In some other instance after that, Gary checked with them to see if they had spinach, and the answer was no, so he told them to simply skip it.

This time, the owner J. (a very sweet lady) was there and from talking with her, we got the impression that there were spinach, so Sam ordered her omelet. It came as a shock then, when the omelet showed up at the table, there was no sight of any green! J. went to ask the kitchen what happened, and she came back to tell us this. One of the girls was in charge of purchasing produce from the market every morning. The price of the spinach had gone up somehow and she thought it was too expensive to buy. Therefore, she skipped it, and as a result, Sam’s omelet came without spinach, since we had in previous occasions, did not want the lettuce as a substitute. The girl thought she was doing a really good job since she was looking after the financial health of the restaurant by being economical with the cost of inventory. Never mind that they did not have all the ingredients for what the menu called for! J. was pretty speechless upon hearing this explanation. Sam ate most of her omelet, and we just laughed the whole thing off. Rest assured, we will never order this dish again unless the kitchen tells us that spinach is available!