美食天堂
day 1:
china has never been my favourite vacation spot. i've only ever been to guangzhou, which has its own charm, but now that i have something to compare it to, it's a far cry from beijing. apart from the complete lack of wifi, beijing's been a bit of a welcome surprise, not least of all because chengwei is legitimately the most amazing tour guide ever. i've never taken people at their word when they say: "just show up with your toothbrush" but that's pretty much what i did this time, and it's been AWESOME.
i have pretty much zero knowledge of beijing still, apart from what i've been shown, and when i turned up i had a local phone handed to me, a train card, bedroom slippers, and a fresh bottle of soap. up to this point, i've been given a planned (but flexible!) itinerary, convenient lodging, a(n actual live) dog for company, and fantasmic food since stepping off the plane yesterday morning. and the best part of all, no judgment for basically sleeping half of yesterday and most of this morning away. i didn't realize how tired i was until i got here and all the exhaustion of the past couple of months crept up on me. i must have slept something like 13 hours in the last 28. it's been kind of wonderful.
i've walked around the neighbourhood (which i'm told, although i'm still not entirely familiar with how the system works, is situated in circle 2), been grocery shopping (MY FAVOURITE OF ALL THINGS), been shopping at a lovely, quirky little alleyway (NAME?) and been driven past gui jie. i've tried lijiang cuisine, which was interesting - fried potato balls? om nom nom! - and oddly malay/peranakan in presentation, and had one of the best fish of my life for dinner. i don't even know what it's called or how it's done but oh my god i would eat that every day for the rest of my life if i could. the chicken wings were pretty delish as well!
as usual i completely forgot to take pictures before the meal disappeared, but i did snap a couple of the devastation after we'd had our way with it.
also i tried cucumber flavoured chips, and lime flavoured ones as well. THEY'RE SO STRANGE. i still can't articulate my feelings about them. i know i don't hate them because i pretty much ate half the packet, but i'm not ready to say they're my new favourite chips either. i'm just going to stick with: THEY'RE SO STRANGE.
on today's agenda: shopping at xiu shui, english tutoring at an lgbtq centre, and gay night drinks at a nearby bar (non-alcoholic for me, but still). beijing is turning out to be preeeeetty wonderful. ♥
day 2 + 3:
yesterday was my first day properly venturing out on my own! it was a little bit intimidating, but chengwei had so thoroughly prepared me to be completely terrified by the number of people who would be on the subway that it wound up being less scary than i thought it was going to be! unfortunately, shopping at xiu shui turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, but i did decide to be an AMAZING sister, and i wound up buying a season of the f word and both seasons of top chef masters for my brother. he needs to love me for this, more than he knew was possible to love someone. honestly, though, there was nothing to buy, and i ended up whiling away my hours listening to ang mohs haggle with the locals and laugh over the inane conversations both parties were having because they knew the other half didn't understand.
this is where i realized for the first time that i truly could never live here. everyone reminded me just how much i didn't fit in. the locals think i'm one of them only until i open my mouth, and the ang mohs look at me like i'm just another beijing native. it legitimately makes my skin crawl. but i got over that, and went on to try my first jian bing, after i got bored eavesdropping, and it came with an egg and some bacon on the vendor's recommendation. it was good but weird, like eating prata and bacon? bought a cup of soya bean milk before i realized it was made from satchets of powder and spent the minute it took to dilute the power marvelling at--something, idek what. it was all just a little bit overwhelming.
i bought a mango mousse on my way back to the apartment to wash it all down and then a little bit later chengwei called to meet me for dinner. we tried two places for beijing ya but both restaurants had a pretty long wait. we wound up going for ma la xiang guo instead, oh my god, how the fuck is that, how can something that looks so innocuous SO FUCKING DELICIOUS i don't understaaaaaaand. my tongue was tingling the whole time, it was amazing! then we headed down to the lgbtq centre chengwei went to teach english at last week and had good, not-so-clean fun for one and a half hours. chinese boys are more willing to share and care than i thought! :D a couple of really sweet boys came up to talk to us at the end as well, AND they believed i was part japanese thank you very much!
as teachers, we had to stay back for a debriefing afterwards, and what struck me was watching the whole "white man saves the world" thing happen IN REAL LIFE. it was odd. and china doesn't NEED saving, is the thing. their hearts are in the right places, but they need more asian perspectives to make this work.
anyway, afterwards we walked around a bit and went for some pizza and nachos (eh and nommy, respectively) before we headed to a nearby bar (my first gay night experience!) to hang out for a bit, and it was--still really not my scene, but chengwei was happy to let me just watch him drink his beer, which was awesome, because most people wouldn't have let me get away with it and genuinely not minded. i ♥ him.
anyway, today? TODAY? TODAY WAS AMAZAYNNNNNN~
chengwei took me to have a lovely japanese meal. it COMPLETELY turned me on my head; their unagi was SALTY, what even! and then i headed to the zoo, because that was pretty much the only thing i insisted i wanted to see while i was here. the zoo was half underwhelming, half CRAZY AWESOME. what it lacked in quantity it made up for in diversity. i've never seen SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF BIRDS IN MY LIFE. never been as fascinated by them, either. AND THE AQUARIUM WAS SICK AND COST 6.5X THE ENTRY TO THE ACTUAL ZOO AND THERE WERE TWO DEWGONG AND THEY WERE SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL AND BIG AND I JUST--YOU KNOW HOW YOU HAVE MOMENTS IN YOUR LIFE, THAT WAS A MOMENT, JUST STANDING THERE WATCHING THEM, I AM PRETTY SURE I WAS ALL ♥_______♥ AND--THAT WAS A MOMENT.
i didn't get pictures of that because I AM AN IDIOT, but i do have tons of pictures of other (gorgeous) things!! LIKE MY FAVOURITE ANIMAL THE WOLF/FOX/HYENA/GIRAFFE IDEK WHAT:
i have a ton more photos here. and also i'm going to strongarm chengwei into uploading the ones he took at some point. i'm making an effort~ AND SOMETIMES CHINA MAKES IT SO EASY I MEAN LOOK
also the zoo was so pretty!
so after the zoo, chengwei and i took the subway back to a famous beijing ya place. and the subway was fucking insane. if i'd been on it alone today i would have probably cried, it was like backstreet in malaysia all over again, only worse. :/ i was mashed up against him, genuinely mashed; my boobs actually hurt by the time we got off the train. BUT i was so glad i'd turned towards him instead of away because there was someone else mashed up right behind me and the whole time i was half hysterical with the fact that i had a stranger's crotch rubbing against my ass anasdslkg FUCKING CHINA
but the beijing ya more than made up for all the trauma, even if only half of the other dishes we ordered were actually edible.
we took our leftovers and headed to qianmen to see the street all pretty and lit up at night. it was the second time that day i walked around all *_______________* with a mcdonald's ice cream float in hand and it was magnificent~
AND THE STARBUCKS THERE MADE ME GIGGLE SO MUCH
then i saw tiananmen square (from a distance) before we headed back home, where i got dressed in my comfy pjs, and sat down to watch a terrible gay movie while chengwei got dolled up and went out :D all in all, this was one of the best days i've spent anywhere, in any country, ever.
day 4:
SO MUCH FUNTIEMS TODAY OH MY GOSH!!!!!!! it was the first day chengwei didn't have anything work-related to handle (boy works too hard, can i just say) so after he got back from the gym (and made me french toast for breakfast - and how long has it been since i've been able to sit back and watch someone cook for me, idek, but it is legitimately one of my FAVOURITEST FEELINGS IN THE WORLD *__________*)
ANYWAY after that we headed to the train station to take the bullet train to tianjin. we went to the food street, which was slightly disappointing but did result in me purchasing a jianbing and oh my god that thing is SO DELISH, idek what it is or what goes in but it is THE TASTIEST, i could eat that forever, i don't even know. i was also tempted to have the snails, but they weren't deep fried and i'm apparently not as adventurous as i wish i was.
plus, we had to stop to try the gou bu li bao zi (which roughly translates into "dog ignore buns" but because chinese is a fucking amazing language, can either mean the bun is so bad the dog ignores it, or the bun is so amazing that the dog ignores everything else in favour of it). we tried like 8 or 9 different types of buns, and chengwei gamely took the first bite of each one before passing them to me, which was nice. :D the only one he spat out was the vegetarian one, which turned out to be one of my favourites, lmao forever. and he really liked the prawn and crab ones, which i nibbled and then returned to him, hahaha. BEST EATING EXPERIENCE EVERRRRRRR. they really just tasted more like glorified xiao long baos then anything though, which was a bit of a disappointment.
we walked off our lunch as we headed towards one of the famous cultural streets in tianjin (i forget the name) and it was adorable and quaint and not even all that commercialised (yet) and i bought a bunch of dvds and had my first bottle of chinese japanese tea and made my first successful bargain! which i should not be as pleased about as i am because i could clearly have done better and i didn't try hard enough, but STILL.
then we took the train back to beijing - and that train is AMAZINGLY comfortable, okay, i love trains anyway but this is china so that was a nice surprise - and the subway was squishy but not as bad as it'd been before, so that was fine. we alighted at wangfujing to check out the food street and alsfjksdg OMG THAT PLACE IS CRAZY AWESOME IT'S LIKE HONG KONG AND BEIJING AND MACAU AND EUROPE ROLLED INTO ONE?!?!?! it's hard to explain it's this huge mishmash of old and new and THE FOOOOOOD. there's the good and the bad and the really fucking gross, LIKE LIVE SCORPIONS THEY PUT ON STICKS AND FRY ON DEMAND AND I ALWAYS THOUGHT I'D BE ABLE TO TRY THOSE BUT I REALLY DON'T HAVE IT IN ME OMG JUST LOOK HOW NASTY THAT IS
but i did try chou dou fu and ostrich kebabs and lamb kebabs (FUCKING DELICIOUS HEYO) and fried ice cream (but it was yam ice cream and that was SO WEIRD) and also the beijing version of century egg and something that tasted like fried xiu mai
and after all that we tried to catch the avengers (i'm always curious to see what cinemas are like overseas and how much they differ from the ones back home) but they were only showing the 3d version in that cinema so it didn't seem worth it. we did grab a drink called yakult bomb (OMG SO AMAZING WHY DON'T WE HAVE THIS IN SINGAPORE I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND)
and also some poutine (mostly because i was amazed they had poutine here, and i was weirdly nostalgic for canada because we'd talked about chengwei maybe visiting it at some point later this year)
we also stopped to peer into a hello kitty restaurant that was equal parts ridiculous and loltastic
and then i made chengwei take me to his favourite grocery market because i love looking at all the stuff we don't get at home, even if i don't actually buy anything /greedy
we got home a little bit after that, and watched the latest episode of supernatural, which prompted a mini freakout over how much tv i'm missing atm and how it might be next to impossible to catch up on all of it (YES I KNOW IT'S A RIDICULOUS PROBLEM, W/E) and i also thought about how nice it was to have someone else in bed with me after the past two and a half years without my sister there.
it's funny how much things can change without you even realising it.
it's also funny how you can have the most wonderful day in a city you don't even like, amongst people you can't stand. :)
day 5:
so my last full day in china was pretty uneventful, all things considered, but in the best way possible. i spent the morning mostly on my own, walking around the neighbourhood for a bit, and then spending the rest of the morning transferring tv to chengwei (which was so painstaking omg idek)
THEN we headed out to catch the avengers, which was only available in 3d for whatever silly reason, and was SO MUCH FUN. i liked it a lot more than i thought i would, even though it could have been punchier with a 90 minute runtime instead of 150 minutes (seriously what the fuck). I LOVE HAWK EYE SO. MUCH. CAN I JUST SAY. he was my favourite. also the hulk. also black widow (WHO WOULDA THUNK IT) and now i just want to read black widow/hawk fic forever okay. and maybe stark/banner fic, because come on now. captain america was boring, and so was thor, even though i really wanted to like them. mostly i was impressed by how much i stopped loathing stark by the end. still not a fan of iron man the franchise, but w/e. all i want to do right now is stalk jeremy renner's imdb page and watch all his movies (although tbh that's mainly because he reminded me of martin freeman and my crush is apparently growing stronger by the day. i endured the first ten minutes of hot fuzz just for his stupid perfect face)
ANYWAY. after the movie we headed to have north Korean food for dinner, served by GENUINE NORTH KOREANS omg, whose being allowed to work in china is a diplomatic sign of goodwill. they're not allowed to interact with anyone but their customers, and they basically can't go out anywhere except to and from work and home. (in fact, they might actually just live above the restaurant they work at.) they were incredibly lovely, though, and amazingly talented. each one of them could legit have their own singing career, it was the craziest thing. and the food was… surprising. the lamb was so tasty, but their version of sashimi was weiiiird. and their seafood pancake thing was a lot thicker than what i'm used to. still, a fantastic experience all in all.
we walked to carrefour after our meal so i could have another starry-eyed look around, and then we took a cab to try chicken wings at a supposedly amazing little-known shop, driving past the Olympic stadium and a shopping mall with a ginormous plasma screen tv ceiling on the way (except the tv had been turned off by the time we drove past, soooooo.) THEN when we finally got off the cab we had to walk to the actual chicken wings shop, and we got lost a couple of times on the way. which meant that we had to walk down REALLY DARK ALLEYS and omg i am so terrified of the dark i probably would have run if i'd been walking on my own D: (where by probably i mean i would have been) and it turned out that the chicken wings place had just closed when we got there. \o/ ah well, c'est la vie. we did manage to catch a bus back home though, which cost -- get this -- EIGHT CENTS what even asljkdfsgfdhgfd
sometimes china is truly astounding.
day 6:
woke up late this morning and realized i'd basically slept most of what little time i had left in china asleep. not that i could be too upset about it, since chengwei was hard at work and i wouldn't have been able to venture far anyway. the highlight of the afternoon was the fantastically orgasmic shanghainese lunch i met him to have, oh my gosh, NOTHING HAS THE RIGHT TO TASTE THAT BEAUTIFUL IF I CAN'T HAVE IT EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE.
going to be hunting down local shanghainese restaurants like whoa now, okay.
ummmm. yes. that is pretty much all. almost a full week of unadulterated funtiems with chengwei. looking forward to doing it again. :D