End of November
Hoping to keep this blog from getting away from me, so hoping to get this month recap out as month finishes.
After Dave’s family left and Morton had his birthday party, Herb decided he wanted to see more of China. Dan was heading off to Hong Kong for a quick conference, so Herb decided to tag along. I quickly bought him an airplane ticket and booked him a tour for the day. The next afternoon he flew out with Dan. They got to the hotel late, had dinner and went to bed. The next morning he went down to the lobby to meet his tour guide. Tour guide never showed up. People at the front desk told him they had a free shuttle bus downtown to a cable car that goes up a big hill in the middle of the city – so Herb took it. Pretty impressive – he’s almost 90 years old. He went downtown, found the line, made lots of conversation, took the cable car up, then walked up to a pagoda on top, bought lunch, found a bus down. Asked people for help to figure out what bus to get back to hotel in time to go to Dan’s banquet dinner. He had a marvelous time!
A couple days later Herb and I went to FaHai Temple. FaHai Temple has magnificent frescos that have survived from the 1440s. The emperor’s favorite eunuch at the time, brought together the best painters from all over China to paint these frescos – which apparently made it unique having all the best talent together. Apparently their paints were mineral based – which I don’t really understand what other paints are – but apparently this has caused them to last much better than their European counterparts.
We bought tickets which allowed us to enter for 20 minutes into the dark room with a flashlight. Before entering the dark temple we were required to lock our phones into a small locker (so sadly no pictures). We had a great time though walking around with our flashlights looking at the painted figures, noticing the fastidious details, and trying to make out the stories they were depicting. A tour guide led the few others around talking in Mandarin and continually yelling at us in rapid Mandarin to “hush”.
A school parent invited Dan and I and another colleague of Dan’s to dinner at their house. The dinner was so lovely, with many small beautiful courses, but I want to show off this fish:
Other things going on at the end of November:
I met a couple friends at the Beijing Botanical Garden, in which there is a temple with a reclining Buddha which my friend Dong thought we needed to see. We hadn’t seen each other since before the summer so we were more interested in catching up than admiring the Buddha, but the garden, although chilly , is really beautiful and we had a nice meal in the restaurant there.
Afterwards I ran back to ISB to represent New York (but really Brooklyn) for the second year in a row at the faculty/staff international food event. We again served Bagels and lox. The bagels were certainly not up to Brooklyn standards but we are all just thrilled to be able to find some here.
We went to a fabulous art opening of the artist Bing Yi. The work was beautiful and it was a lesson in marketing. She has created a character – almost an alter ego – that her work is telling the story of and she presents her work as if this alter ego made the work. SO MUCH EASIER to present the work as if it were someone else’s. SO SMART! She threw a large dinner after the opening a the Nue hotel, to which we were invited. It was a lovely evening.
Now that the play Morton was working on is over he is full speed ahead with the ping-pong team.
Herb and I finally got out to the Summer Palace. It was definitely NOT summer. We had a really nice time but it was cold and windy.
At one point we looked over and there were three lines of Chinese people. At first we couldn’t figure out what they were doing.
Then we realized they were lined up to shoot a picture of the special temple through rocks. I don’t know why. I guess it looked amazing???? I didn’t wait in line to figure out.
The next day was Thanksgiving. Here it is a normal work/school day. We had originally hoped to celebrate it on Saturday but Dan and his dad would be heading to Shanghai for the weekend, so at last minute I decided we’d do a small thanksgiving. I ordered some chicken and vegetables to cook. The day before our friend Tiffany said she and her three kids would join us for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately we forgot to take any pictures, but we had a pretty mellow, but still delicious thanksgiving. It was nice to all hang out. I’d have to say my apple crisp a la mode with a home made butterscotch sauce was pretty yum!
The next Dan and his father flew off to Shanghai. They walked along the Bund (the famous Shanghai waterfront), and in the Yuyuan (rock) Park.
then they went to the Jewish Museum. The place was mostly empty except for a gaggle of high school girls. They approached Herb and asked if he was Jewish. They were writing a paper for school about Shanghai’s Jewish history and were excited to meet an actual Jew. They had lots of questions, which I hear Herb enjoyed answering.
Big brother David arrived that evening for a drink at the hotel bar dinner. The next morning they went up to the Oriental Pearl Tower (the third largest tower in the world) – which had a look out with a glass floor that apparently was pretty freaky to stand on.
They then took at boat ride before Dan had to head back to the airport, leaving Dave and Herb for one more night and day in Shanghai.
Herb’s last few days in Beijing, he and I walked around an interesting art neighborhood called ChowYangDi. It has some narrow traditional Chinese streets which we wandered around – checking out a gift shop, a snack shop and then stopping into a drink shop for a hot drink.
Then we entered the red brick area that AiWeiWei developed as an artist area, which has now mostly become for high end design studios and such but there are some lovely art galleries and we headed to an art opening I’d been invited to. We had a great time looking at the art, talking as best we could with people at the gallery and Herb raved about the “7-layer cake” he ate at the gallery that I recognized as coming from Sam’s Club.
For Herb’s last night we took him out for Hot Pot, a traditional Sichuan dish in which you order a broth type base that is put onto a fire in the middle of the table and then you order food: meats, fish, vegetables, noodles to put into the broth to cook – it’s an activity and a meal. We had eaten this is in Chengdu. Chengdu is known for its fiery flavor. Here we ordered much more mild. I got a tomato broth and the men got a chicken mushroom broth.
This morning Herb and Fumiko left at 5:30 to start their trip home – three flights! Beijing to Tokyo, with a seven hour layover, then to LA, with a quick layover, then to Tucson. Soon they will board their second flight. Our fingers are crossed it all goes as smoothly as possible.