Exploring

24. April 2008 by ilanamong.

Yesterday was a day of exploring and going on adventures. We went to the grocery store to get some things for breakfast. While we were there we saw big fish, little fish, and everything in between with eyes on them and the rest of their body parts. They were bloody and didn’t look the least bit edible. We got orange juice, Ritz crackers, apples, and oranges. We came back and did some of our homework. My brother Alex was having a breakdown because he couldn’t think. I did three pages of my math and some of my book project.

After the necessary chores were done, the fun began. We went out to a little restaurant on a street that was playing Christmas music in english the other day. It was a nice little street. The three of us went in to get something good to eat, we got a vegtable dish with an underwater plant and some strong cucumber. My mom loved it, but I didn’t. We also got some sweet and sour chicken–pretty much the same as at home. For dessert, we had some sweet, sticky, buns that were filled with a sweet bean paste (I think). They were okay.

We walked around in the afternoon near the Forbidden City, but we’re waiting until my Dad is done with work before we go in so we can all see it together. On our way to explore a new neighborhood, we got caught in a sudden downpour. Luckily, we were in a touristy area and people are always selling umbrellas–we got two for $3.00. Things are very inexpensive in China.

Once the rain was over, we met up with my Dad and headed off to find a restaurant we read about for my birthday dinner. We walked up and down a few alley neighborhoods called Hutongs. In the Hutongs, we saw people selling meat on a stick, old men playing board games and drinking tea, people fixing shoes, public restrooms, restaurants hidden behind walls in courtyards, and of course, lots and lots of construction. All of Beijing is under construction.

We could not find the Hutong where our restaurant was supposed to be and we were getting pretty tired and hungry, so we gave up. We found a little hot pot restaurant in a small Hutong off a main street. A hot pot restaurant has a big pot in the middle of the table and you order meat and vegetables that come raw and you cook it yourself by dipping it in the hot pot. Our hot pot had two sides, a spicy side and a plain side. We ordered beef and we got mountains and mountains of raw, thinly slice beef. We also ordered some clear noodles, some big scallions, and some cabbage. You throw everything into the pot and just scoop it out and eat it when it’s cooked. I didn’t eat the scallions or cabbage, but the noodles were really good. It came with a peanut dipping sauce that you mix little scallions and cilantro into. I didn’t think I would like the green stuff in the dipping sauce, but it made it really good. The owner of the restaurant had to show us how to do everything–she was really nice. I’m getting pretty good with chopsticks now, which is a good thing because outside of the hotel and touristy restaurants no one has a fork. I enjoyed my birthday dinner.

After dinner we walked down to a bakery and bought a birthday cake. This was a little difficult because they had a lot of sample cakes to choose from and we weren’t sure if we could get one to take with us. Luckily a girl about 12 years old came in and was happy to try her English out on us. We managed to pick a cake with pandas on it and they decorated it right then and we took it back to the hotel with us. They even gave us candles.

Today is my dad’s last day at the conference, so now we can start doing all the things we’ve been saving up to do with him, like visit the great wall, the forbidden city, the summer palace, and more. Right now, I’m hoping to go to the zoo to see the pandas, but we haven’t decided yet.

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