A whole new city

Weather: fine and mild
Caption: High, Ho, Silver - riding the Eastern Dragon. Although I believe this is a lion...

It's amazing. Our bikes have opened a whole new city for us. Being independently mobile is great. We went to the 798 Art District today. We worked out that it's about 6kms from out flat and we cycled there and back. On our way we stopped at Miss Me Cafe next to Lido Park for coffee and croissants. You pay about 30 RMB per cup of cuppacino, but this morning it was definitely worth it.

Riding a bike, is well, like riding a bike. Once you know how, you never forget. And I cycled to school for 6 years, so it's all coming back to me. Dodging through the Beijing traffic is a new skill I'm still developing.

So back to the 798 Art District. I have never been to a art presinct of this magnitude. There are a gazzilion galleries and some great cafes and eateries. Some better than others. It's impossible to do it all justice in a day. And Frikkie, who's been there before said that most of the exhibitions have changed since he was there 2 weeks ago. There were loads of over-sized outdoor sculptures. And video installations. We saw some very interesting art, especially the exhibition about coal miners and their life at the Long March Space. But after a whole day of galleries, it all got a bit much. Nothing a lovely pesto and goats cheese pasta with a good glass of Chilean chardonnay at the Art Cafe couldn't fix though.

Riding back we stopped at the flower market and City Shop, a chain specialising in organic products. I've started doing some research for pricing NoMu and MyT Chai Rooibos products. How exactly to start selling it is still a mistery. But some ideas are starting to form in my head. The flower market is connected to another market selling anything from clothes to Thai soaps. We picked up a DVD copy of Shaun of the Dead, but the cover is in French... Do you think Shaun et les zombies is going to be in English with Chinese subtitles? I certainly hope so. The flower market was great. Frikkie said that the market would have a few Pretoria mevroue in rapture. Some of the lanterns were beautiful and I can honestly say that I've never seen such old bonzai trees.

Some more pics from the art district.:

The best jiaozi this side of the Yellow River

Weather: hot and hazy

Today we behaved like complete tourists. We started our day off at the Lama Temple (yes the Tibetan kind), which is just down the street from the Confucius Temple. The Lama Temple was built in 1694 - so South Africa is almost as old as this temple. It's one of the biggest temples I've ever been too with and the main attraction is a 18m tall Buddha cut from one piece of white sandal wood. It's pretty impressive. And filled with worshippers and one or two monks.

I found it quite interesting that the Chinese government almost never miss an opportunity for bit of low-impact propaganda. Like how they spent large some of money on restoring the temple and blah blah blah.

Another universal truth discovered today: Where there are tourists there are curio shops. And in this case these shops mostly sell incense that worshippers burn inside the temple. But there is something about buying curios in a country that you're going to live in a for a while. So, we didn't buy anything except some incense and Frikkie insisted on getting a Tibetan prayer bowl. I'm sure that not it's proper name, but I don't know what else to call it.

Again the walking. We headed for the Confucius Temple but decided not to go in. It's like going into cathedrals - it gets a bit same-same. And so again the walking. But at least today the tube stations names weren't completely foreign. What's great about the subway here is that all the stations are announced in Mandarin and English. And the maps on the tube are in English too. So at least I'm starting to get an idea of where I am some of the time.

There is a great free publication called City Weekend that covers what's going on in Beijing that may be of interest to expats. Avril Lavigne is here on the 6th, and Air was here this past weekend. They also review wine, restaurants and have a listing section that's proving to be rather handy. We had lunch at Baoyuan Jiaozi Wu. Yes, you try and pronounce that, but despite the mouthful for a name the dim sum were truly delightful. Better than anything I've ever eaten. Yes, better than Koi in Sandton, which makes of the best dimsum in Jozi. We ate ourselved into a stupor. And all for 60RMB (about R72), which included 2 quarts of Tsingtoa draft. YUM~

After our hearty meal for headed for Chaoyang Park, apparently like Central Park, just in Beijing. Don't think for one moment that the Chinese Government don't charge. They charge. It was 10 RMB to get into Chaoyang. And it's not that 20 RMB is a lot of money. But we needed to get to an ATM first, so decided to take a stroll around the park. The park is "the largest public park in Asia', so going round about half of it took some serious walking. We walked passed a couple of ATMs, but pushed on. And ended up in an older, less glam part of the neighbourhood still looking for an ATM. No ATM= no taxi fare. No taxi fare=lots more walking. More walking not good at this stage and not really an option. It was Beijing like we have not seen it so far. The housing was lower cost, the streets muckier, more potholes, but the people couldn't care less if
we were there or not. They just went about their late afternoon business.

We saw some bikes we liked. Matt black, basic. No gears. Biker X. Most bikes are pretty clapped out and we don't want to get anything too flashy. Cause apparently flashy goes missing. So we're bike window shopping. Frikkie's not all that keen, but I think getting a bike is the way to go. Cause this walking thing is over-rated. And I'm hoping that once I'm confident enough on my bike that I can move up to a scooter. Maybe, cause I'm pretty sure I don't have a death wish and to actually drive in Beijing traffic you've got to have a death wish. I'm sure I will blog about the Beijing traffic in detail in future.