yesterday we became heroes (after climbing the Great Wall) and today, we are warriors of china :P or at least that's what i'm going to call us after we conquered the chinese subways, explored the beijing zoo and braved the exotic local food on wangfujing street.
Uh, note that the following pictures are not of any of the above XD lol yes pictures refer to paragraphs below
on our own today. we woke up to have breakfast and then headed to our new hotel. had lunch at a curry shop lol if i had to describe chinese local life in one moment of our time here, lunch today was it. it was loud and busy, the tables were unclean and there were lots and lots of shops that were serving food that were not remotely chinese at all lol from everything that i've seen about china, i'd have to say that they have definitely embraced what they like about other cultures, but it's not a smooth transition...enough to confuse me as to what is authentically chinese anymore but not smooth enough for me not to notice it? ramen shops here and there and pre-made sushi on the supermarket shelves....kfc and mcdonalds and starbucks in every major shopping mall...attempts at japanese and western fashion, obvious through the brand obsession and purchases of knockoffs. not sure what it is, but even while we were at the major chinese cultural sights, it was still really strange to believe that we were in china. the importance and elegance of everything was dampened by hordes of people hoping to get a quick snap of where they were, what they saw instead of thinking of where they were at. don't mean to complain because today was actually the best day (so far) that i've had in china.
I'd definitely agree with that. It hasn't felt like China since we got here, except perhaps in the brief moments when we experienced the grandiose quality of the sprawling sights like the Forbidden City or Summer Palace; I keep telling myself, "I'm in CHINA," but it hasn't felt... well, fun. I mean, don't get us wrong, it was nice to see the sights and do the tourist thing and man, China's sights are gorgeous and amazing, but there's been something missing that we had in Japan. I think we figured out that we were missing human interaction. Despite being on a tour with a nice guide and driver and being constantly surrounded by a lot of Beijing's 13 million (or more?) people, we've been lacking in human interaction these days. The service people are obscenely mean and the other people around us pushy and impatient. Although we still had some of that today, I think that we saw the other side today... surprisingly, in what I'd refer to as the "underbelly" of China. But, er, I'm getting ahead of ourselves. I would categorize this morning as that first side.
beijing zoo was a little like that. after we managed to squeezed on the (ALWAYS) crowded subway cars to get to the zoo, we pushed our way through the ticket line (because people were cutting anyways) and had our tickets thrown at us. One guy cut into the line from the side to get tickets, and when we finally got ours, the lady threw the tickets down at us, and before they even fell to the counter, she said sharply for the next person to hurry up and move forward in line =\ It was pretty chaotic. went to see the pandas, of course, but so did everyone else. to get one picture was nearly impossible. best representation of numbness? (not sure what is the right word) was the lion and tiger house. all of them locked up in cages while tons of people camera flashed their faces. so depressing. That was very depressing. They were locked in these small cages behind the exhibits, and many of them were pacing around. There were also other animals... a raccoon and a badger both paced around their tiny cages, back and forth, as though they were going crazy staying there. Another depressing part was by one of the bird areas, where there was a small pond and pretty landscape... or what would have been pretty landscape, if there weren't trash and people's litter everywhere. Talk about lack of wildlife conservation. It's like those images you see of birds on the seashore with human waste everywhere. One guy even flicked his lit cigarette at a bird =__=; 
On the up side, the pandas seemed really happy. They are really lazy; they were just sitting in their cages eating bamboo, sleeping, and making waste. So lazy~
made to wangfujing street, or golden street, around 5pm. it was interesting for sure lol lots of people, lots of lights and lots of shopping/food stores. christine and i definitely were there for the food...and man, did we eat lol
terrible job.
jasmine tea ice cream first lol it smelled and tasted exactly like we expected and it was good. they do short you in china and don't fill up the whole cone though boooooo lol It was only 5 yuan though, so can't complain too much. Jasmine tea ice cream as one of my next ice creams, maybe :3
second we bought these candied ball things on a stick. initially thought it was meat, but it turned out to be very very sweet :) not bad though Haha, "candied ball things" is not quite descriptive. If you've ever had the hawthorne flakes that they sell in Asian stores, then you can kind of imagine what it tasted like. The balls were basically the same as the flakes, but were these big round balls of hawthorne, and they were dipped in caramel and sprinkled with sesame seeds. They were good, but very rich; I don't know how those little kids do it, because Tiffy and I shared a stick (of 6 balls) and could barely finish it.
walked on the exotic food street after and spent the rest of our time out there lol first thing we saw? sticks and sticks of scorpions still wiggling while skewered :P lol even made me a bit squeamish. It was pretty funny, because we were standing next to the stand getting pictures/videos of the scorpions (and I was totally squeaking in horrified amusement), and next to us was this couple. One of the guys working at the stand saw the lady also being squeamish, and he picked up a scorpion stick and put it right next to her. I saw him doing it, but we all jumped up -- I think the scorpions touched her arm -- and screamed like little girls XD in addition to traditional meat kabobs, there were skewers of starfish, seahorses and beetles/silk worm pupae. other stands had squid and octopus on a stick, omelets with veggies and crazy different candied items like grapes, pineapples, chinese apples etc. christine and i got roped into this one guy's candy stand and each blew sugar (caramel?) to make dragons. it made for entertaining movies lol i think we'll go again tomorrow :D
Scorpions
Starfish and seahorse
Silk worm cocoons and cicadas
unadventurous meat
corn :D
squid and octopus
chestnuts
coconuts
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veggie omelettes?
grapes, chinese apples and pineapples
blown sugar candy
To the street, not for the caramel XD Tiffy is thinking of getting the silk worm this time. Ughhh... Tiffy, you are testing the limits of my courage QQ It was absolutely terrifying to eat that scorpion. By the way, we ate some chicken on a stick, an egg burrito with bean sprouts in it, some fries from McDonald's... and oh yeah, did we mention that we ate scorpion, too? On a stick and deep-fried. Yum. (I'll leave it up to you to decide if I'm being sarcastic or not there.)
another brave thing we did today? stay out past sunset in china. oOOoooo lol didn't get mugged! that's always good :P
more tomorrow!
P.S. More MTV China/Channel V right now... we're seeing this band with this guy, who was previously probably the guy with a pink sleeve. The reason why I mention this is because I LOVE HIS HAIR. It's got a nice side-bang cut, sort of Ciel-style, and it's BLUE. I love his hair. Adding that to requirements XD No, but also, I've also spent a long time looking for this one music video. If anyone can help me find it, I'd be so very happy. It's a Chinese song with a cute girl and a cute music video of her and this guy and their cute moments together. Yeah, this is why I can't find it -__-;
Wow, very brave with the foods o_o and, pandas~
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