An Afternoon with Fan Fan

I spent much of the day today with my graduate school friend and former housemate Fan Fan. We hadn't seen each other for over two years, but as is usually the case between friends, it felt like no time had passed. Fan Fan is a Beijing native and very knowledgeable of her city. She took me to one of her favorite restaurants where we dined on pigeon (which she assured me was bred for eating - see photo - yes, that's it's head), fish which I learned had been swimming in a tank nearby prior to our arrival, melt-in-your-mouth beef, chicken soup (which was a lot of blue-ish skin and bones but very tasty) and some vegetables. And she ordered me a taro root drink which is apparently unique to this restaurant - it was hot and pretty good due to it being mixed with a bit of coconut milk. I think the pigeon would have tasted great if I could have figured out how to eat it. But this clumsy American diner could not find the tiny pieces of meat so I let Fan Fan work on it. I equally had trouble with my soup and as Fan Fan told me, if the bones were too much trouble just eat the broth, so I did. The rest of it was pretty easy to master and we left very, very satisfied.







Next, Fan Fan took me to a shopping district and showed me the shops that sold traditional fare like cloth, foods (oh, I could have tried everything in there!), toy puzzles, Beijing candy (a google search says it's made with hawthorn berries), chopsticks, and the oldest department store with a large iron bust of the "ideal" worker in front. We also stopped into the Olympics 2008 gift shop. They are really gearing up. On this afternoon, Adidas was promoting their sponsorship all along the shopping street. Apparently, a lot of the people out shopping were domestic tourists visiting Beijing.







After my introduction to shopping, we walked some of the neighboring tree lined streets past various government offices. Lastly we visited the famed hutong area which was full of domestic tourist groups and rickshaw touts. It was very nice to have my own private tour guide to deal with them. While in the hutong area, we visited a house/gardens which is supposed to be the oldest intact residence (though no longer one) of it's kind. It was a very impressive mix of traditional buildings, rock formations and a large pond. I imagine if it weren't winter, it would have been even more impressive (and less cold!)







On our way to get a taxi, Fan Fan pointed out a project of the department of sports and fitness (if that's the right name) where they have bolted exercise equipment on the sidewalk so anyone can get physical activity (see photo). It was pretty great idea - though at that moment, the only people using them were us.







Tomorrow my crew is off to Sichuan for the next segment of the adventure...