Dan went to Shanghai for a long weekend for the APAC conference – an inter-school competition – the first in three years. That Friday night a friend invited me to a fashion show and after party of the designer Hu She Guang. The previous show, two years ago – due to Covid – looked pretty crazy so I signed up. There ended up being a group going and they hired a photographer to photograph us! The show was held at the InterContinental Hotel in Sanliton – a fancy neighborhood downtown. Evening was super fun but the business model was nothing I have ever heard of before. I didn’t realize it until someone pointed it out to me, but most of the models were seniors – not as in highschool but as in older adults. Apparently there were about 60 runway models. Maybe 7 of them were professionals. The others were seniors. The seniors were women who like the designer’s clothes and they buy a membership – which gets them pieces of clothing and then they become the models for the show. The Huang Rui doesn’t sell to stores – it is all by membership.
The next day I took the kids to check out the neighborhood and (most importantly) a bookstore I’d heard about near Tiannamen Square. The kids were so excited – it was a very large beautiful bookstore with many books in English! Afterwards we went out for a lovely Lunner (Celia was too hungry to wait until dinner time) – that had an amazing view of the surrounding hutong neighborhood (the traditional one story with winding pathways neighborhood). After Lunner we wandered around the neighborhood for a while before heading back home.
View in front of bookstore (One Page)’s windowView from Lunner’s restaurant deckFunny mural in hotel with restaurant
Other than those events, Morton has been playing a lot of volleyball. His season ended last weekend with a big tournament. The team didn’t do their best for the final horrah – but their playing has gotten better and better.
Celia has been doing lots of senior spirit events:
Seniors dress like a teacher day – this is Celia’s favorite film teacher Mr Rinka
Dan and I had a nice night out with a couple friends going to an art opening of Huang Rui – a historically important Chinese artist – followed by dinner at a yummy Chinese restaurant.
Standing in front of one of the new piecesNot the most flattering photo but the food was delicious!
I have been playing more and more tennis as things have opened back up. Yesterday was the first time I got bumped off the courts at school. We couldn’t believe it. The woman in charge of organizing the tennis afterschool lessons came over to kick us off for a lesson and when we introduced ourselves to each other she said to me, “Oh – Ganish (the coach here) said you have big balls”. I was a little surprised/ confused. I think somewhere between the Indian teacher, the Chinese organizer, and the English being spoken to me there was a translation malfunction – but it definitely gave me a good laugh.
School got out for Chinese New Year. Everything got very quiet in Beijing. Restaurants shut down as Chinese people went to their hometowns for Chinese New year. Morton had volleyball practice Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Sunday afternoon we went downtown to check out a market I had read about. We got there just as it was closing early for the day due to the holiday. We didn’t have a back-up plan so we decided to check out a fancy shopping area we had never explored. Kids found some good snacks and I tried on these sunglasses (in the picture), and then Celia took us to the area where she and her friends go out at night. We went to a Mexican restaurant and played a game of pool.
The next day I came down with what I assume was Covid. My home test said negative but I was so terribly sick I can’t imagine I didn’t have Covid. Tuesday and Wednesday I continued to be sick – but not as bad. Kids were spending a lot of time doing nothing (other than Morton’s morning Volleyball practice). I figured we needed to get them out of town.
Celia handing out at home with Milo
I booked a room in a nice hotel in Tianjin for Thursday and Friday nights. Tianjin is just over a two hour drive away. I figured even if I was still sick, worse thing was I’d get into a car, drive two hours and sit in a hotel. At the very least I’d have gotten the kids out of the house.
The next morning I woke and felt well enough to head out. We left early to have time to see some of the city. Once we dropped our stuff at the hotel, we walked to the old trading area. Tianjin is a city of just under 14 million people. Beginning around 1860 and going till a little after WWII, Tianjin was broken in to many foreign concessions (areas that were conceded to other nations) for them to live, work and most importantly trade. So walking around the old area of Tianjin was very different that other parts of China we have seen – lots of old European looking buildings – and even the many new buildings, most were made to look like old European buildings. A number of rivers and the Grand Canal come together in Tianjin so all through the city are interesting bridges. We walked, checking out the old European style buildings, and then checked out The Astor Hotel – which is a beautiful old European hotel – the first hotel for foreigners in China. Everywhere we walked there were almost no people. It was crazy cold and the streets were empty. We struggled to find a place to eat lunch and finally found one place open. They put us in a private room, sitting on couches – and they turned on the heat. We all struggled not to fall asleep.
First things first: Celia needed a coffee after going out half the night with her friends and then we woke her early to go to TianjinCelia and I being very fancy at The Astor Hotel in our layers of clothing to keep warm.Celia taking in the wonderful aroma of a field of plastic flowers growing outside in the 12 degree weather
After our very late lunch, we headed back to the hotel, napped and swam at the pool before heading back out for dinner. I had read about a noodle shop. Luckily before heading out I asked the concierge to confirm the restaurant was open. It wasn’t. The owner had gone to his hometown for the New Year. The concierge called a number of other restaurants – the same thing. We ended up just walking across the street to a mall and going to a dumpling shop. But walking across the street was actually quite an experience. People were burning things and shooting off fireworks in the street. It was pretty scary! Chinese are crazy for shooting off fireworks for New Years to keep evil spirits away.
Our hotel room had a wall of floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city. All night fireworks were going off everywhere. For a week it continued – despite the fact that in most cities now it’s illegal to shoot them off. I’m sure there must be many injures every year during the New Years week celebration.
The next morning Dan woke to WeiXin messages about a serious school problem he had to deal with. We went downstairs for an over the top hotel Chinese breakfast. After that the kids and I headed out to the China House. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was but figured it would get us walking in a different areas. As we approached we saw a crowd of people outside the China House – the first crowd we’d seen. Tons of Chinese tourists taking pictures of themselves out front of the China House. The China House first reminded us of Gaudi’s buildings in Barcelona and then we thought of the Mosaic House in Philadelphia, and a similar house I visited with my parents in Cuba. The China House, also known as the Porcelin House, is mosaiced in Chinese vases and shards of Chinese pottery. We loved the over the top obsessiveness of it.
Crazy exterior of China House with crowdsCrazy interior light fixtureCrazy kids on deckCrazy detailFish mosaics on the stairs up
The kids and I spent the rest of the morning walking in the bitter cold around the area, seeing the old colonial homes and agency buildings, and a beautiful old European style church – that felt weird to see in China.
Often as we’ve travelled we’ve seen Jewish stars in advertisements which have nothing to do Judaism. Walking around that morning we saw this one:
We’d love to hear what you think the Jewish star means in this advertisement.
After a few hours of walking around, we were iced to the bone. We stopped into the Four Seasons to use a lovely bathroom and then went across the street to a mall to find lunch. The Chinese food court was way too packed, so we put our names in at an upscale pizza restaurant and called Dan to meet us. Every table around us got what looked like a large piece of tira misu with their lunch food – not after, but they had it come with their pizza, pastas and salads – eating it at the same time.
Afterwards we headed to a Buddhist monastery I heard was worth checking out. When we got there there was a small entrance fee that could only be paid in cash. I have never been able to use cash in China, so we never carry it. I couldn’t believe they didn’t take Weixin payment. Struggling through my Mandarin, I explained this to the ticket seller. The monk who was standing next to him waved us through. The monastery was large and beautiful and had been restored not too long ago. We wandered around until someone started yelling and waving everyone out. It too was closing early for the holiday.
Dan, Celia and Morton in front of one of the temples at the monestery
We headed back to the hotel and spent a couple hours at the pool, the gym, one of us who will not be named – napping in the room.
That evening the concierge confirmed that the noodle shop was open and that they had vegetarian food. We headed to this neighborhood which we hadn’t yet seen, found the hole in the wall noodle shop that had been recommended. The chef/waiter/maitre d’ (it was a one man shop) quickly told us they were out of many of their dishes. After some failed attempts at communication I broke down and took out my phone. Typed in my translator app: “Is there anything you can make to eat with out meat? We are vegetarians.” He said, “No.” and we were back on the street -late on the Chinese New Year holiday- looking for some place that would serve something with out meat – often not an easy feat in China. We wandered around admiring the neighborhood but being concerned by the passing hour and our inability to find dinner. We walked into what was an old arena with a track that looked like it has been turned into a ring of closed restaurants. Ended up Eric Liddell – the Olympic runner that is a focus of the movie Chariots of Fire – built the sports arena. He had been born in Tianjin and after his running and rugby career, returned there and built the arena. We were starting to give up on finding a restaurant when I saw a painted slogan on a wall about eating vegetables. The next thing you know we were in a completely unChinese kitchy vegetarian restaurant. I wish I had pictures. The place was full of nut crackers and other silly dolls – and everything on the menu we could eat! Crazy in China!
The next day I made us wake early so we could enjoy the fancy ShangriLa brunch before setting out to see more of Tianjin and then before heading back to Beijing.
We then walked around the Drum Tower area – every town so far has a Drum Tower. I had read there were Peking Opera performances in the afternoon but the hotel concierge couldn’t get anyone on the phone. After wandering around, trying to figure out where we were supposed to see the opera, it seemed these performances were not happening – but we walked through the old shopping area – which was pretty quiet.
We then headed towards the Folk Art Museum, which I heard was worth a look. The directions led us to a historic shopping area. There we found all the Chinese tourists. Every single one was shopping: buying trinkets and eating tourist foods along this strip. After buying our obligatory magnet (Celia wants to buy one in every place we visit) we couldn’t bear the crowds and ditched out attempt to find the museum.
Crazy crowded!!
We decided to walk along the river to the Italian Concession. There had to be good food to be found there. The old Italian homes were beautiful – but again we had trouble finding a restaurant with appealing non meat dishes. We ended up finding a Thai restaurant that ended up being fantastic and a wax museum (we just took a picture outside) and then we headed back to the hotel to meet our driver to head back to Beijing.
One last thing note worthy from this trip is that on the drive back into Beijing, every car was stopped to check everyone’s ID’s. As we don’t have Chinese IDs, we had to pull over, go to the office and present our passports. Luckily we had them. We had no idea this was required of us. Apparently every time you drive into Beijing you need to present your official ID.
Every car entering Beijing is stoppedChecking our passports to enter Beijing
Dan and kids headed back to school on Monday. Tuesday I joined some friends to Jinan – a city of 9.2 million people. What takes over five hours by car, we do in 2.5 hours by the fast train. Our friend Michael has work in the Jinan Biennial art show, so he, his wife Dong, two other friends and I all head down there to check it out.
I was impressed when we got to the museum and there was a long line to get in. I love that there is so much interest in art! As we were with Michael, the museum curators met us out front and brought us into the museum via a side door – bypassing the crowds. The biennial’s opening celebration had been cancelled due to Covid, so a slew of museum staff and promotion people came to interview Michael on film. They then wanted to interview us as foreigners coming to see the show but we politely declined as we hadn’t even seen the show yet. The museum was very nice as was the show.
Us looking at Michael’s beautiful photographs
Before heading back to Beijing, Dong insisted on taking us out for a lovely local lunch.
Making jian bing
Train ride home was packed but uneventful until we got to the Beijing station. My driver was picking three of us up. We had planned to meet him at the West Gate entrance where he’d dropped me off. After about 30 minutes of our wandering around – trying to get to that entrance and our attempts kept getting thwarted, we finally got there and there was no way to exit there – only enter as there were security gates and scanners there which were only one way. We spent another 20 minutes trying to find any exit. We ended up in the parking lot but it took us forever to figure out how to get outside without walking the parking lot ramp. We finally got outside and sent the driver a pin of our location. After waiting another 20 minutes watching his location dot on my map drive in slow circles, we realized there were no public cars near us – and the driver texted the roads were blocked. We eventually decided to meet up in the underground parking lot. Another 20 minutes later – trying to figure out where in the lot we were and where he was we finally got into the car – exhausted!
Quick updates since then: I can’t believe I don’t have any pictures but Morton is having a very short volleyball season (as they lost much of the season to Covid). It’s been super fun to see him play. His game has gotten much stronger and it’s nice to see him taking on a bit of a leadership role on the team. Dan is also helping coach the team. I’ll have to take some pictures next week.
Earlier this week my friend Sara had me over to try out some fancy tea she had been given for New Years. I had never seen a tea set like this. Apparently cold or bitter tea you can just pour out into the base. And also on a number of occasions people have served me tea in these tiny cups. Apparently then the tea you are drinking is always the correct temperature.
My friend Sunny gave us special tang yuan – sweet dessert dumplings eaten special for Chinese New Years. They were delicious!
And today with my friend Xin we caught the second of three parts of the Beijing Biennial (every where seems to be doing biennials!). This was located in this newer area of tall buildings that were apparently built with the intention of moving the art area out to this new area. It was odd walking amid this group of tall buildings with almost no one around. The show had some nice pieces and then we checked out some international galleries that have opened spaces in these buildings. We ran out afterwards to grab some warm noodle soup and then I went to Morton’s volleyball game at Dulwich (a British style school in the area) – Morton’s team won! It’s been such a great change in the last two weeks that parents can enter campus (first time in three years!) and students can compete and travel to other schools.
Dan flew off this evening to Shanghai where ISB, his school, is competing against a number of other schools in Table Tennis, Swimming and basketball. Go Dragons (our mascot)!
Last week an ISB parent invited me to join her to see one of the locations of the Beijing Biennial Art Show (there are three). This location is in an old department store that opened around 1960 where only foreign currency could be spent – which regular Chinese people couldn’t get their hands on. Apparently regular Chinese people would go in and be astonished at all the colorful clothes, the appliances and other foreign conveniences they had never seen before. More recently the department store has been struggling, there was talk of plowing it down. There are still a couple floors selling some goods and they just opened a couple floors for the Biennial. A number of curators had areas they curated. The show was really nice to see – a lot of really interesting work. Sadly the show was very empty – hopefully that was because it was a week day. Unfortunately I didn’t take many pictures.
A beautiful installation by artist Yin XiuzhenThis installation by Song Dong was documented in the show.This photo by Wang Wenlan from 1991 touched on something Celia had noticed about how the high school boys here are much more comfortable having physical contact with each other than boys in her NYC school.
There was also a beautiful installation by Tan Jing where the tiles crack and break under the viewers feet, giving a sense of walking through dusty memories.
There were a couple pieces by Xin Yunpeng about pingpong. I especially liked a video piece with the sounds of the game and a break with the referee’s eyes.
Trying to out run the Chunjie (Spring Festival) travel rush, which should start tomorrow (Friday the 20th of January), we jumped on a plane to Harbin this past weekend. Harbin is a two and a quarter hour flight north of Beijing.
Standing outside our hotel
Harbin is by far the coldest place I have ever been – and as I went to college in Minnesota – that’s saying something. Harbin has a population of over 10 million people and before this past summer when Celia and I read the book People Love Dead Jews – which has a chapter on this city – I had never heard of Harbin. There are so many humungous cities in China that I have been completely ignorant of. Harbin is famous for it’s over the top Winter Ice and Snow Festival – and we had heard it was not to be missed. That, and our interest in the very large Jewish community that lived in and made the city the thriving metropolis that it is- made us very interested in going.
After checking into the hotel and bundling up (see picture above) we strolled along the main old street and found a dumpling shop to grab dinner and try Harbin beer (very light).
The next morning after the Chinese buffet breakfast at our hotel we bundled again and walked out to the river front. On the river were lots of activities – though not the many people we expected and feared. It was quite empty. There were ice sleds and carnival type rides spinning people on the ice, ice skating and ice bicycles. Four wheel vehicles were spinning people on a long line of inner tubes connected with ropes. I convinced the kids, and then the man driving the four wheel vehicle (in Mandarin!!), instead of driving us in crazy circles, to pull us to the other side of the river to where the Snow Sculpture Festival was taking place.
It was a super fun ride, but I didn’t anticipate that the speed would make the temperature feel like it dropped another 20 degrees!
The snow sculptures were super impressive!
And in between all the sculptures they had crazy dangerous ice slides and this silly Ninja Warrior type obstacle course
After the snow sculptures, we took a gondola ride back over the river. Morton headed back to the hotel and Morton, Dan and I found a delicious Chunbing restaurant (I have found out that’s the name of those delicious pancakes we ate at the Beijing Hutong restaurant) and ate a late lunch.
Morton and Dan on the GondulaCelia and I on the Gondula
Late afternoon we headed out to see the Ice Sculptures – which are the most famous part of the Harbin Winter Festival. The handiwork was not as impressive as the snow sculptures, but the overall effect, with the massive size and amount and with the disco lights inside was a fantastic site.
Me riding an ice horseMorton, Celia, and Dan – hard to photograph at night with all the lights!People were spinning tops on the disco ice by whipping them to keep them moving
Later that evening we took a taxi to another side of the city to meet with Dan Ben-Canaan – who is known as the only Jew who lives in Harbin. He worked on having some of the many important Jewish buildings preserved. He and his lovely wife Isha had us to their home, gave us many snacks and spoke of the history of the Jewish people who from around 1890-1950 were a powerful force in Harbin.
The next day we got up early and spent a good chunk of the day exploring the historical buildings of Harbin.
A beautiful Turkish MosqueExterior of the old SynogogueInterior of the Old SynogogueI couldn’t get over the beautiful windows and doorsLobby of an over the top ornate old Russian hotelGuys standing in front of Russian Orthodox Church of St Sophia. The exterior brick work is unbelievable!
The interior of St Sophia was odd. It needed a major restoration but they had a pianist playing music and a show of traditional western inspired landscapes (plus The Last Supper).
A bill board by the church. Celia is debating heading to Vladivostok
After our walking tour, and failing to find a restaurant I had read about, we went into a random restaurant that looked nice. While we tried to figure out the menu, a young man sitting at the table next to us came to our rescue. He was studying in Australia and was home for the holiday having lunch with his mom. He told us what to order and told us we’d done well falling into this restaurant – it had been in Harbin at least since he was a child.
After lunch we went and packed up our hotel room and headed to the airport and back to Beijing.
Highlights of this week: Celia celebrated her big “Halfway Lunch” – half way through senior year. The parents go over the top with it – spending hours decorating. The seniors are applauded on their way in, then special food and fantastic deserts, a slide show and a photo area.
Dan had a big meeting with a higher up in the government and was given the opportunity to spend a few extra days being quarantined in a hotel – locked in his room, eating lovely food that is left at his door in plastic containers.
I was invited to a hot pot restaurant with a really interesting group of women. We all wore red in honor of the new year.
Dan finally was released to his meeting and then was able to make the New Years Celebration at school.
Dan after his meeting with Chinese Government officialDan being paraded around the school.
This evening marks the beginning of ChunJie (the Spring Festival). Everyone in China goes to their home town to celebrate the New Year with their families. At the moment we plan to stay put, having some quiet time. Possibly we’ll do some exploring – once we recover from this last trip. I’ll let you know!
After we found fun in Chendgu, we flew back to Beijing and had a few more days before school started back IN PERSON!! (Yeah!)
The boys did some puzzling, Celia caught up with friends at the local coffee shops, and I planned a last minute after Chanukah Chanukah party and fried dozens and dozens of latkes.
The Chanukah party ended up being a blast! Lots of friends showed up. I thought it might be small with Covid but I think everyone was ready to get back out after such a long couple months. Our friends the Rubins brought two beautiful home made challahs. We lit the menorah and said the prayers over the wine and Challah. We then gave an explanation about Shabbat and Chanukah as this was most of our guests first exposure to Shabbat or Chanukah. Before dinner we had an all in dreidel competition. In lieu of gelt, I bought two large bags of Chinese candies. It was definitely the biggest dreidel game I’ve ever participated in. A few minutes into the game we noticed that the wooden dreidels two of the tables were using always landed on Gimel – which means the spinner gets everything in the pot. It was super fun – despite the fact that I was knocked out in the first round. Our friend Jason one and brought home the framed dreidel.
Jason, giving thank to all who helped him reach his level of dreidel spinning.
After dinner, we had a gift exchange. I had asked everyone to bring two things from their home that they no longer loved but someone else could. In the tradition of Dan’s family, everyone got two chances to steal other people’s presents or pick a new one. Super fun.
Afterwards we had dessert, then as the party started to wind down, our friend Michael pulled out his guitar and we sang songs. A nice marker of the rough times behind us and hope up ahead.
New Years Day Dan, Morton and I headed down to The Summer Palace to go ice skating on the lake there. Morton’s missing his easy access to the skating rink at Prospect Park and we heard the Summer Palace is a great place to skate. Only a half of Beijing had the same idea. After waiting in traffic a while, we decided it would be faster to walk there. At the gate, I slowly communicated with the woman selling the tickets that I just wanted tickets for us to skate. I gave her our passport numbers – no idea why we need passport numbers to skate – and then she told me all skating tickets were sold out for the day. VERY FRUSTRATING.
We took a little walk while the driver caught up with us – he was still caught in the traffic. We decided to go down to BeiShiDa – the Beijing University where Dan lived in the mid 90s and taught foreign exchange high-school students at the high school across the street. We were unable to get onto either the university or the high-school campus and Dan had trouble recognizing the neighborhood – like most things in Beijing – it had completely changed. But he did take a picture outside the school where he taught and we enjoyed ourselves walking around and going out for lunch.
Dan in front of school where he taught in the 90s.
After a couple weeks of searching, and underground connections, we were at last able to get our hands on some at home Covid tests. The kids and Dan tested and finally got back to in-person school on January 2nd! That first week was a major challenge for all of us to get used to waking up so early again but despite that we are all happy for the return to in-person.
This past weekend the Boy Scouts also returned to in-person and Morton went on an in-person ice hiking trip.
Meanwhile, Celia, Dan and I went downtown to an old Hutong area that have the old twisty windy streets to a restaurant that had been recommended to me when we first arrived. When you all come to visit we have to go back to this restaurant. It was so yummy! We wandered around trying to find it and eventually went into a restaurant we thought might be the one. We asked someone for the Caidan (menu) and the person asked if we were looking for the Jianbing fanguar (pancake restaurant) – which we were. He then lead us back outside and around down a few little alleys to a small sweet looking restaurant. There we ordered these incredibly thin pancakes that the waiter showed us we were then supposed to slowly pull apart into two even thinner pancakes. We then ordered fillings, we got an eggplant- mushroom one (the yummiest!), an egg scallion one, and a mixed vegetable one. You put these on your thin pancake and eat it like a small burrito. So good!
Daniel and Celia at the restaurant. Food was so yummy we forgot to take a picture till it was all gone!
Afterwards we walked around the neighborhood for a little while before heading back home.
Some funny deserts we saw being soldCelia’s teacher often gives the class these bunny candies so she was excited when she saw a store selling them.
We just decided to take a quick trip up to Harbin, a town in the north east of China this weekend. There had been a large Jewish community there from around 1810-1950. We’re interested in seeing the old synagogue and other Jewish sites they have preserved there, plus Harbin is supposed to have one of the most amazing Winter Festivals in the world. We are told after this weekend it’ll be too crowded with so many Chinese traveling for the Spring Festival so we decided to go at last minute as Celia can’t wait till next year and really wants to see it. I hope to give you an update on that trip soon!
The next morning I had planned for a van to pick us up and drive us to the outskirts of Leshan – a town two hours away which reportedly has the largest Buddha sculpture in the world. Monks carved this Buddha out of a large rock face. Unfortunately Celia felt sick and got back into bed after breakfast. Her symptoms didn’t seem like Covid – but as Covid is running rampant in China it seemed most likely it was Covid. Unfortunately after much effort I was unable to get my hand on any home tests before leaving Beijing.
Dan, Morton, and I took the van to see the Buddha. After buying tickets at the gate, we walked a half an hour under these beautiful arched trees along the River to the small mountain where the Buddha is carved. Then we needed to hike up for a path for another 45 minutes. Along the route are all these small buddhas that had been carved into the rock faces and on the other side are beautiful views of the river as we climbed higher. When we got to the top there was an ornate temple/monastery at the height of the Buddha head. It is pretty amazing. After spending some time checking out the top, we then followed another path which took us down to the Buddha’s enormous feet.
We continued hiking along the many paths, coming along beautiful bridges and monasteries.
Sculptures in monestary
When we were thoroughly exhausted, we found a road and sent our driver our location. He picked us up and we had him drive us into the town of Leshan. Our tour guides didn’t mention the actual town – I think it was too small to be significant – it only has 6.5 million people (!!) but the concierge at the hotel said it was a nice city – definitely worth walking around in. We ended up exploring a lovely area but had a little trouble finding a restaurant that had food without meat that wasn’t too strange. We finally found a little place with three seniors sitting outside making dumplings (zhaozi). They couldn’t understand my Mandarin at all – which was discouraging – but I was finally able to order some mushroom zhaozi for me and some random meat ones for the guys.
That evening we were too tired to do much. The restaurant in the hotel was closed due to covid and the room service just seemed way too expensive to justify. The restaurants right around the hotel didn’t look very appealing. We ended up finding a subway (the sandwich shop) near by – Morton’s favorite! He got a sandwich and we bought another for Celia. Dan wandered off to find something else. When I called him he was at a Poppa Johns – the U.S. pizza chain that I have never before been to – nor ever wanted to. But I met Dan there. He had already ordered a vegetable pizza. We sat outside and ate it. It lived up to my expectations. The Pappa Johns was connected to a Dairy Queen. The choices were different than in the U.S. Dan bought a sunday. I think it was also pretty terrible but it was funny to be half way around the world eating at restaurants we know from home.
Friday I had planned a Sichuan cooking class but since Celia was still sick I postponed it till Sunday. Morton, Dan and I headed out to check out a few neighborhoods where I thought might be interesting to walk around. In the first, around Yulin Road, we found a bagel shop – we were very surprised. They only sold the bagels as sandwiches – which was disapointing as I thought it’d be great to bring Celia one. Morton got one sandwich and it was surprisingly good.
We walked through this cute, more affluent neighborhood, then headed over to the Tibetan Quarter and wandered around an interesting market.
Boys using the exercise equipment that is all over ChinaEating snacks in the market by the Tibetan neighborhoodSilly panda installation along the streetLighting the Chanukah candles at the hotel.
That evening the boys and I went to a Chinese brew pub – which was definitely going for the feel of an American brew pub, ate, drank, and played cards. I was excited to order a salad (not so easy to find at a restaurant here) but a little disappointed that my “Kale Salad” was made with romaine!
The next day Celia, still sick and Morton feeling – not sure if a little sick- or just a little run down. The pool opened, so we spent half the day lounging.
Lounging at the pool
Dan and I then headed out and found a little hole in the wall restaurant on our way to the Chendgu history museum. Food was fine and museum was much better than I expected. Kind of wondering if some of the artifacts were actually real – what they had from so long ago seemed a bit hard to believe to have survived so pristinely. Dan thought that was a crazy idea. I’m not sure – but it was impressive.
The museum was on a large open square with a couple large sculptures that almost look like Olympic torches and a gigantic sculpture of Mao with an outreached saluting arm – felt reminicent of when I went to the Soviet Union many, many years ago.
The next day was Christmas. I delayed both our cooking class until Tuesday – and our departure from Chengdu as Celia was still not feeling well. Chongqing would have to wait until another trip.
We again spent the morning at the gym and hanging out at the pool. Chengdu is famous for their tea so that afternoon Dan and I headed out to have tea in The People’s Park. The strolled in the lovely park for a little while and then sat down at a table where everyone was having tea. Most of the patrons had a tea pot on the table on a little fire and they were cooking snacks on the grate that help their tea pot. We ordered some tea but when we tried to order snacks it became clear that we could only order through TikTok. We had no idea you could order TikTok. After downloading the app and failing at figuring out how to order food, I approached a young couple and tried out my Mandarin to ask for help – the snacks looked so cute – it felt like I’d be missing part of the experience without them. The young couple were very sweet and I was excited to have some success with my Mandarin. The woman eventually offered to just order for us on her TikTok account and we just transferred the money to her through WeChat. We sat eating our snacks and drinking our tea until the sun was going down and we were thoroughly freezing.
On the way home we saw a line outside a large window. When we looked in there were an assembly of men making some kind of rolled meat buns and the line was to buy them. We figured this was the place to pick up the kids dinner.
The next day – Celia was still sick. This was our last day to explore as the following day was the cooking class that I kept postponing so Celia could join, and after that we really had to return to Beijing. Dan bribed Morton to join us on the exploring promising to stop at a mall Dan had seen that had many activities he thought Morton would enjoy.
We started off at Wangjianglou Pavilion Park. The temples there were not that impressive but the park was beautiful and all the bamboo was really amazing.
Then we headed to the Wenshu Monastery and wandered back to the hotel, exploring yet another lovely and different neighborhood. Last stop – the mall. Morton was not as excited about it as Dan had expected but he did play a little Claw Machine.
When we got back to the hotel Celia was feeling better and was hoping to take a taxi to the place we had tea. We bundled up and started to head out to the tea house but then were told the tea house had closed for the evening. The hotel concierge told us of a similar place. The directions led us to a mall. We wandered around the mall with no luck. I finally went into a medical office of some sort in the mall and the woman at the desk pointed me towards the door outside (we were on the fourth floor). We walked out the door at the end of the hall and found ourselves on a terrace with a large tea house. This was a fancier experience than in the park – not quite what we’d hoped for, but we had a nice time.
The next morning we finally made it to the Sichuan Cooking Museum! I had organized a tour guide and a cooking class. Hua, our tour guide (and Hua means flower) took us through the museum, explaining the history of Sichuan cooking, how it changed over time, how the very early advances in irrigation effected their cooking, and the different vessels they developed to cook. It was a little more of a tour than we realized we were walking into, but it was really interesting. She then taught us to make three traditional Sichuan dishes, Baozi (which we made in the shape of panda heads), Mopo Dofu, and Kung Pao Chicken (or vegetables for Celia and I – we still do not know what the vegetable was). It was super fun – a definite highlight was pouring the liquor into the Kung Pao dish and burning it off.
Eating one of the panda dumplings she made.
That evening we explored yet another cute neighborhood on the opposite side of the Anshun Bridge where we had gone out for hot pot. Not very Chinese, but we couldn’t resist a cute Mexican restaurant we came across. We couldn’t remember the last time we’d eaten Mexican and it ended up being really good.
Our last morning we woke and headed back to the Yulin Road where we had found the bagel shop. We got a breakfast of bagel sandwiches and then wandered through the neighborhood before grabbing our belongings, checking out of the Ritz Carlton and flying back to Beijing. Despite Celia having Covid, we had a good trip.
Oh! And if you read this – I’d love to hear from you! I believe the comment section is now functioning.
Sunday the 18th we got up and took a two hour flight to Xi’an. I got us a hotel in the middle of the old, walled in city. I had been to Xi’an with my parents and brothers back in the early 90s. I just remembered seeing the Terracotta warriors and the large wall surrounding the city. That was enough for me to want to go back. After checking in we walked near the hotel – seeing a number of the big sights of the city: a couple large pagodas and the Muslim neighborhood. We stopped at a famous dumpling shop for a very late lunch and strolled the streets.
The travel guides warned of long lines to get into the restaurant but the place was almost completely empty – as were all the sites and streets. With Covid in full swing in China, everyone was at home – sick with Covid or hiding to avoid getting it. After lunch we continued to wander. Morton found a crazy “claw arcade” – a game shop that only has claw machines.
Morton has amazing skills at this game in the U.S. At this shop the games felt rigged – much harder than in the US but he did win Celia some stuffed creature she wanted.
That evening we found this amazing complex of restaurants and activities – but not a single person there. It’s a strange time – the the economy tanking after being closed for so many years and everyone sick with Covid. Daniel and Morton jumped on an indoor basketball court to play – but were told it was closed. Seemed very odd. We found an empty roller-disco/pool hall. The guy there turned on the disco lights and Chinese disco music for us. I couldn’t get the kids to roller skate with me but the boys and I played a game of pool. I want to make sure it’s in the record that I crushed them – I’d like to attribute it to all that practicing with Anita and Chris last year – but most likely it was just a lucky night.
The next morning we ate early in the hotel and then went to see the Terracotta warriors. Our tour guide was great. Sadly she said there hadn’t had any tours in three years.
When I went to see the warriors in the 90s there was just one pit that was being excavated. Now there are three – though none of them are close to completion. It was as amazing as I remembered – and great to see it again as my memory was mostly foggy. The massiveness – even with only a small portion excavated – is still truly amazing. Each soldier is unique – representing supposedly an actual person. And the way they are piecing it together is also unbelieveable. Apparently when they unearth the pieces they are very brightly colored but extremely quickly the colors disappear -this is one of the reasons the excavation is going so slowly – they are trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening – but not much luck so far. After the first excavation of warriors they started documenting the pieces quickly so at least in photographs the colors can be preserved. It seems so crazy to imagine The Terracotta Warriors so brightly colored.
Afterwards the guide wanted to take us to a restaurant to have the local noodles. The character for these noodles required around 54 strokes to write – it’s crazy! I’ve never seen anything like it. Unfortunately when we got to the restaurant, it was closed – she assumed due to Covid. So many places are closed now.
I had read of an area which was supposed to have lots of good snacks and street food so the tour guide decided to take us there. When we got there, there were guards saying the area was closed. She couldn’t believe they could just close off the street with all the shops and food stalls – but it was all closed. Out of desperation we went back to the Muslim area we were at the previous evening. She took us to a more local section of the street and asked people where we could get these famous noodles. We walked for a while and after a bit she was informed the restaurant had shut down. She then found us another noodle house where we ate some kind of hot noodle soup. Not really sure what it was but it was hot and we were so cold so even if they weren’t the famous regional noodles – they were perfect!
After that we went to check out the old city wall. I had heard you can bike on top of it and circle the old city. I was a little surprised when we got there that you have to pay to go on to the wall – not so expensive – but seems a terrible shame that the locals can’t just take advantage of this great place to experience their city. Anyway we went up and rented bikes. It took 1.5-2 hours to bike around. The bikes were pretty terrible – we couldn’t change the seat heights – but we had a really fun time biking around and enjoying the views of the city.
That evening Dan had a couple phone interviews that would make dinner timing difficult and Morton was tired so Celia and I headed out on our own. We caught a taxi to a pretty distant part of the city. We got there and it was beautiful! There were these colorful lanterns and lights on the trees. We wandered around taking it all in. Our tour guide from earlier in the day recommended a restaurant in the area which ended up being very strange. When we got there we thought maybe it was a cat store. There were all these cat sculptures and pictures in the window. Then a young man in a beautiful silk robe with a cat pin and a cat mask peaked out and asked us if we wanted to eat. Inside there were more cat paraphernalia. The food ended up being not great, but it was interesting.
Silly fun in this Chengdu neighborhood
Afterwards Celia and I went back out and wandered around some more and Celia bought a large ice cream sunday wrapped in a freshly made waffle.
The next morning we headed out to the train station. After a bit of a struggle -first we couldn’t figure out how to use the ticket purchasing machines and then, finding the only open ticket counter, not understanding the agents questions. As a long line was forming behind us, we were lucky that the young man behind us in line spoke a decent amount of English and got us through buying tickets. We got tickets on the high speed train to Chengdu. We were very surprised when we got on and found the train quite full as it was mid day on a Tuesday when everywhere else in China is completely desolate. Very strange. It took us just over three hours to get to Chengdu.
As there are no tourists, the Ritz Carleton was having a crazy deal on their rooms – so we booked ourselves there. We couldn’t believe how beautiful it was when we got here! Because so many people are out with Covid, many parts of the hotel were closed. The gorgous pool- was the most disappointing for us.
Gorgeous view from our room
After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we jumped on the subway and went to a super cute neighborhood, wandered around and bought some small dishes wandering from stall to stall, tasting this and that, for dinner.
Late that night I woke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. When I opened the door to the bathroom the toilet lid automatically opened with a light going on inside the bowl. In the middle of the night it gave me quite a fright!
The next morning we woke to an impressive Ritz Carleton breakfast spread. Then we drove out to one of the Giant Panda reserves. Chengdu is famous for its pandas. We had a lovely morning wandering around checking out the super cute pandas. They are either feasting on bamboo, dropping bamboo residue all over their bellies, or they are sleeping. Seem like a nice life. We all want one as a pet.
After the Panda preserve, we found a vegan restaurant somewhere in downtown Chengdu. It was very strange. It was in a mall that was almost completely vacant. There was nothing else on the entire floor that wasn’t empty. The escalators were wrapped in plastic. We assumed the restaurant must no longer exist but saw one light on down the hall. When we got to the lit area we walked into this lovely restaurant. Again, it was very strange, but we had a nice lunch.
That evening I had a taxi take us to another neighborhood I had read about. He dropped us at a bridge that was so beautiful.
On the bridge is a Micheline star restaurant – which looked lovely but we weren’t dressed for it – but it was also almost completely empty – so sad to see. We wandered along the river’s edge. Most of the places were kareoke bars which were empty. I was feeling a bit discouraged about finding a place we wanted to eat when Celia and I peaked into a hole in the wall. The woman working in this tiny restaurant talked us into staying with our minimal ability to communicate . The restaurant was quite small – just a few tables. One family at a table tried to help us negotiate food. We eventually sat at a small square wood slat table on wooden benches. The food was hot pot – with a hole in the middle of the table with a gas burner in it. This is the specialty of Sichuan – the region we were in. The woman running the place put a large pot into the hole and then a small circular pot in the middle of it. She put ingredients in them both, then added water, to make broth. One was non spicy and the other was supposed to be just a tiny bit of spice. Then we ordered vegetables (and later meat for morton) to put into the boiling broths. I couldn’t bear anything that came out of the spicy broth -but it was a super fun activity and a man from one of the two other tables and his young son – joined us for a while – which made it all the more fun. The son was a 3rd grader and although shy, his english was definitely better than his father’s or better than any of our Mandarin. It was a great evening.
So we did sneak in a Thanksgiving dinner between all the lockdowns. The Sunday after Thanksgiving we were cleared to have a small Thanksgiving dinner. We had a few families over. We missed our families in the States, but it was super nice to get together and the food was all delicious – especially Celia’s tart!
After my last entry things continued to get a little crazy here. During that initial locking of our neighborhood they had everyone in the neighborhood line up and get tested. The delivery people and the Ayis (“Aunties” – women who clean the homes and do childcare) were caught also locked in to our neighborhood. Even delivery people who were just delivering a package at the wrong moment got locked in. They were held for maybe 12 hours in our complex. We were freed after around 24 hours as no one had Covid.
The kids school planned to open the following week, but the one school that got permission to open had a case of Covid on the first day opened, so it was shut back down and all other opening of schools were denied. Covid was spreading in Beijing and it seemed the government couldn’t keep up with their routine of picking up possible near contacts of near contacts and quarantining them. Fewer and fewer people were getting picked up as the system appeared to be overloaded. People started protesting. Many neighborhoods where people lived more tightly than in ours had been locked down apparently for months. We were on an emotional rollercoaster – so depressed to be shut in by Covid again. To have travelled so far to end up not being able to experience China – why are we here? And then for a half a day we’d get hopeful that things would improve – that the kids could go to school – and then things would look worse.
To focus on some positives: we started making fires every night and all hanging out by the fire.Celia’s cat, Milo, has gotten a lot of attentionHaving been stuck at home for a couple weeks, I decided I’d join a friend at Sam’s Club. It was so nice to get out! There were all these “Bird’s Nests” products which is supposed to be the latest health craze. Do we have that in the U.S? We bought a toaster oven off of someone moving. Major life upgrade as our toaster we brought from the U.S would take forever to toast here.I finished this art piece I had started before I left the U.S.
Back to our story: Someone in our neighborhood caught Covid and many in the neighborhood gathered to block entry to her house – so she couldn’t get picked up. The government never showed up for her. The government made a statement about this variant being weaker, then restrictions quickly started to get dropped. All happened very quickly. Schools were still closed, people were getting sick. People were panicked as they had heard for three years how dangerous Covid is. The city was a ghost town. Things were shut – no longer due to regulations but because there was no one to work places – everyone was sick. Dan got Covid. For five days he would sleep between his online meetings. Travel restrictions in China were finally lifted and vacation was a few days away. Saturday morning the 17th, Dan woke feeling better and I booked flights to Xi’an for the next day.
An hour or so ago (our Tuesday around 11am)a message came up in my neighborhood group chat. We have been locked into our neighborhood. One person in a batch Covid testing came up positive – who lives in our complex. We are all locked in while they test this person. Hopefully they will be negative otherwise who knows how long we’ll all be locked in. There are around 430 houses and one small apartment complex in our community – so that’s a lot of people locked in.
Dan and the kids’ school – and many others in the area- were shut down as of Monday. Yesterday was prep/pick up books/computers/supplies day and today online classes have begun.
Our large local market has been shut down for a number of days due to a close contact person having shopped their. Yesterday I needed to pick up some food so I went shopping in the mini supermarket/bodega like store in our complex. It was a bit of a grab what I need and what I might need and not worry so much about the cost – that brought me somewhat back to early Covid in Brooklyn – with the panic buying. So depressing! In the last few weeks more and more people are being required to stay home as someone they had contact with might have had contact with someone who has Covid. And schools are closing. And so are restaurants and stores and services – as there aren’t enough people to run them and as people are having to quarantine at home – or in Covid government facilities. So discouraging to be back in these circumstances.
To catch up on what we’ve been up to since I last wrote:
HanBin and I having tea in artist Li Jiangfeng’s studio
My friend HanBin took me out to Song Village – about 45 minutes away – to visit a couple artists in their studios. It was discouraging to hear how stifled the art Beijing art world has become in the last five years, but it was lovely to meet some artists and see what they are working on. Unfortunately they don’t speak English and my Mandarin is still pretty minimal.
Artist Xioa Hong with his painting in his garden with HanBin and me
Li JiangFeng invited us back for a barbeque at her studio the following weekend. The weather was lovely and the food delicious. It was really special.
After this lavish lunch, I ran home to get ready for a dinner party we were hosting. I decided to have everyone break up in groups and have a short time to find commonalities and then act them out. It was a super fun way to quickly get people to know one another.
Acting out commonalities. Send me your guesses!
Our complex used to have a large American population and although the number of Americans is dwindling there is still a strong tradition of celebrating Halloween. Our complex moved the holiday to the 29th (the Saturday before). I thought this was great ( so much easier than a school night) but there were some purists who held out and insisted on doing their own trick-or-treating on the 31st. We enjoyed answering the door for kids who came by – it was funny that we had very few American kids knock on our door on what I think of as such an American holiday.
The following weekend a parent I’ve gotten to know invited us to her twin daughter’s horse back riding competition. One of her daughters is hoping to make the Olympics. We made a nice day of it. We biked to a local market and had a fantastic Chinese snack lunch. I had buns with vegetables in them – so yummy! They sell everything at the market. Celia loved the fish!
Then we biked over to the horse back riding club. It was super impressive – with lots of indoor and outdoor areas to train and compete. And so scary the horses jumping so high! One of our friends daughter was on one of her sister’s horse who was really worked up. It ran up to a hurdle and stopped – refusing to jump. The daughter riding the horse went flying – hitting the bars of the obstacle on the way down! It was frightening – but she was okay – other than being very disappointed.
The weekend before Morton’s birthday, he spent camping with the Boy Scouts.
Saturday night Dan and I met some friends in Beijing’s 798 art district. We saw a New York Art in the 80’s exhibit. I hesitated going as I just moved from NYC but friends suggested going together. It ended up being a really interesting show and a lovely evening – going out to what felt like a typical American Italian restaurant afterwards. (Funny how small the world is.)This piece (below) from the show was really interesting to me. Reminding me of Roberto Lugo’s current work but this was done in the 80s as a collaboration between Basquiat, Haring and a few other artists.
On Morton’s actual birthday we made our traditional birthday signs (my Dad’s tradition) and went out for sushi – Morton’s favorite.
At a local Japanese restaurantBirthday boots from Grandma!
I recently decided I should start the process of getting a Chinese driver’s license. The first step is to go out to a local hospital and get a physical exam. I biked out to the hospital – went to a few wrong buildings until I figure out where to go. They had me look at one picture which had two numbers written in pale colors. I had to read the number – I assume to make sure I am not color blind. Then I was sent to another office to pay – again I got lost a few times – then come back to get my official papers to sign up for the test. Pretty funny. On the way home I biked by these ladies just performing for whoever happened to be in the park.
The Sunday after Morton’s birthday was “Morton Day”. We did things he wanted to do. I asked around about bagels and was directed to Shanen’s Green Cow Kafe. Our driver drove us to the pin on the map and dropped us off. We then proceeded to walk around for 45 minutes trying to find it – Dan attempting to follow where Apple Map was directing us. After about 40 minutes, Dan and Morton left Celia and I where we started and said to wait -they’d continue to look. As they set off, Celia and I decided to try asking someone working at a meat cart nearby. Celia showed the name of the restaurant to him and he pointed to what looked like a locked barracaded fence across the street. We walked over and were confused. I then asked someone else nearby. He pointed to the same spot. We decided to push on the gate. It opened and inside was a lovely courtyard and restaurant. We called Dan and Morton and explained where to go. Later the owner of the restaurant explained they were forbidden to have a sign in English (I have no idea why they didn’t have a sign in Chinese). It ended up that Dan knows the owners of the restaurant. They also own an organic farm and were trying to get the school to buy the farm for educational purposes. The restaurant was like a taste of home. We all ordered bagels – three of us with lox. It was lovely! Unfortunately the restaurant is closing next month. The property is being taken over by the government – a frequent occurance here as the government owns all land. And all businesses here are very slow due to Covid, so they won’t open another store at the moment. Such a shame!
Afterwards we went to a record store and bought some very expensive records to play on our new record player, and then we walked around 798 – going to a bag store Morton wanted to go to – getting his school bag fixed and buying a new small bag for his new camera.
Streets near us
Just an interesting (to me) note. Along many of the streets near our home there are these beautiful willow trees. Recently I noticed they are chopping them all back. I guess this makes them grow better (?) – I’ve never seen this before.
All the tree branches have been cut off.
This past week the kids only had school on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday were Parent Teacher conferences “Jia Zheng Hui”. Thursday was professional development for the teachers. The day ended with a party for faculty and staff. People were asked to sign up to bring food from their country/culture. We thought we’d support the lovely Shanen’s Green Cow Kafe restaurant and ordered an insane amount of bagels, lox and cream cheese from them ( unfortunately not pre assembled). I showed up a little early to start making the sandwiches. I wish I had taken a picture. The school printed large banners to go at each station. Ours said, “New York Bagels” and had a picture of bagels. As I walked in a bunch of teachers were outside playing beach volleyball, Dan was in the pool playing inner tube water polo. Another teacher told me they just took a yoga class. Pretty great professional development. I assume they did work earlier. Next to our booth was a teacher also from the U.S. He was making fried Orios. Nasty – but so delicious! Canadians to the right – they were serving a drink that was some kind of version of a Bloody Mary – but they insisted it wasn’t. Super spicy!
Friday we drove up to the wall. We met a few other families and rented a little house there and spent the weekend hiking, eating, drinking, and just hanging out. It was really nice.
Walking along the wallAt places the Wall is crazy steep!Our group, walking on The WallSign at our obligatory Saturday morning Covid test Barbecue dinner in house courtyardDancing horse show at Saturday night restaurant
What else? Without thinking I plugged my beautiful Cuisinart food processor into an outlet – right next to a transformer – and it went POP! I assume it needs to be opened and put a new fuse in it – but finding someone who can do that or who has the right size fuzes isn’t easy – maybe impossible. So sad! I love that Cuisinart – and you can’t buy them -even online -here.
Also, somewhere in here, we bought what “wei gua ren” (foreigners like us) call a tuktuk. A friend is moving away from Beijing and was selling hers. It’s an electric vehicle which drives like a motor bike and feels like you’re in a tin can. Going over any bump you are sure the thing will break – and the other day driving it the back door did fly open and, we didn’t realize until later, the back closing mechanism fell out from the car so now the back door won’t stay closed. I stopped at a store and had Morton buy a candy bar to get a plastic bag to help hold the door closed as we drove home.
I was very skeptical we’d use the tuktuk but it was quite inexpensive so Dan thought we should try it out.
Me driving the Tuktuk
Ends up it has really come in handy! We’ve use it when we have to haul stuff from not far that is too much to carry on the bikes.
Since I started this blog entry, everyone in the neighborhood had to go to the central area and get tested.
Morton in long line to get tested. Morton checking in before being swabbedGuy spraying around us (killing germs we may have left on street??!!)While I was heading out to get tested my friend dropped by this incredible cabbage she picked! Ate a bit of it for dinner last night – YUM!
A quick addendum: now is the next day from when I started writing. We were released last night! We are free to go anywhere that’s open (which school sadly is not).
Now I am planning Thanksgiving. I’m hosting on Saturday. I dragged my feet about it. Hard to imagine celebrating without all of you – not to mention kids told me the holiday’s only good aspect is being with family and friends – otherwise it’s just about the massacre of the Indigenous Peoples. I’m going ahead anyway. Now I’m searching for where I can get ingredients. Not always the easiest to fine what we’re used to.
I hope you all have lovely Thanksgiving. We’ll be missing you all!
Despite getting terrible a cold this week, I had some pretty amazing experiences.
Tuesday two of my tennis buddies, Coco and Rose, took me Stand Up Paddle boarding. We loaded their inflatable SUP boards into our minivan and drove to the Qinghe River next to the Summer Palace. Although when the Palace was built it was in the country, today it very much in the city. Rose told me the water wasn’t clean – but we wouldn’t get wet – but when we got to our put in location, there were tons of Chinese swimming in the river. Apparently they swim there all year round. She then corrected herself and said it actually wasn’t so unclean. I am not sure how clean the water actually is. We inflated our boards in the parking lot and then dropped them off the wall embankment – three feet down to the water – keeping on the ankle leash so as not to loose the boards. We then slowly lowered ourselves down on to the boards so as not to fall into the water. Rose does competitive SUP racing so the board she loaned me was narrow for speed – hard for me to balance on. I didn’t fall into the water, but by the end of our paddling my feet were pretty tired from keeping me stable on that thin board. Although the river ran between busy roads, it felt really peaceful. We paddled for a couple hours and found ourselves in an area of the river where the embankments were being renovated so between the roads and the river ran a make-shift wall – keeping visitors to this part of the river out – but also – keeping us in. We kept paddling and looking for openings to get out. Rose and Coco would ask workers when the fencing would end. The workers either didn’t know or said not too much further – but the end never came. We finally saw a temporary hole that some workers made to get themselves and their materials in. We climbed out of the river there and dragged ourselves and our boards over the rubble and out the hole in the fence. It was a fun adventure. Dan is now fantasizing our spending a summer sometime kayaking the entire 1000 miles of the River. Sounds fun. We’ll see.
On my knees, hoping not to get toppled over by tourist boat. Coco and I going under an old bridge
Thursday Celia submitted her Early Action and Early Decision applications! First one in her grade. And she did an amazing job! I am very proud of her.
Celia finishing her applications – Dan – I don’t think that will cover the cost!Final go over with her college advisor and hit the submit buttons!
Last night we had another crazy adventure! Morton arrived back at school yesterday, Friday, afternoon from an eighth grade sleep over camping trip. He then participated in his after-school volleyball class and then was heading back out for a weekend Boy Scouts camping trip. I ran to school to say, “Hello” and “Good bye” to him and most importantly to give him a bag of snacks.
Dan and I then headed out for dinner. Someone had invited us to what we thought was dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Our driver drove us downtown to the fancy hutong that we had walked around with the kids. We got off, scanned to go into the hutong (- our every move scan that shows our recent covid test – and also keeps track of where we go) and looked for the restaurant. When we didn’t see it, Dan pulled out his phone to look at the directions he had been sent. There were pictures with arrows. We back tracked out of the hutong and went around the corner. We walked past the KFC into the dark parking lot next door. People quickly asked us where we were going – they must have been some kind of security – and then quickly led us half way back into the parking lot. They touched something hidden there that slid a panel open to expose an opening. It opened to reveal an elegant room with a sunken sitting area with a gas fireplace going. Our host, who we had never met before, was there to greet us, along with another friend who has set up the dinner. A fourth guest arrived shortly after us. The fourth guest was an American who has lived in Beijing for twenty years and is the owner and curator of a museum here – and he grew up not too far from where I did. Our host explained that she owned a good chunk of the real estate of the hutong and had recently built this private area to have guests where they wouldn’t have to scan to get in and she was trying to figure out how to utilize the space. She gave us a tour. I am sorry I didn’t take photos but that felt like that might be tacky. Aside from the room we were sitting in, she showed us a large living room type area, then an open central area where beautiful bamboo grew in a large glass shaft that ran from a flight down to above the ground floor where we stood to get exposure from the skylight above. There were two bedrooms around this area – she said in case guests were too tipsy to drive home. Then there was a narrow outdoor area. Inside this outdoor area she had a crane bring in a couple trees and a large stone to make a tiny but magnificent Japanese garden. She then took us downstairs. There was a lovely staircase but we took the elevator with glass walls, passing leaf papered wall paper on our way down. Downstairs looked like a good sized Chelsea art gallery, with a large beautiful bar and a glassed in wine/liquor cellar. In the middle was the glass shaft with the bamboo growing up to the skylight above. It was all magnificent. She asked for our ideas what to do with the space and said she was not interested in it being a money making venture. That was not the purpose.
Afterwards, we went upstairs to the dining room (also lovely) where we sat around a round table with the loveliest lazy susan I have ever seen. There was a back door out of the dining room which abutted to a Japanese restaurant’s back door which is one of her tenants. From this door the most elegant Japanese food I have ever seen slipped quietly into the room and was placed onto the lazy susan.
The only picture I took. Lovely – but doesn’t do the meal justice.
At first we weren’t really sure how the company would be as we felt a little thrown together, but it ended up being really interesting conversation – hearing about the museum owner’s trials and tribulations getting Matisse artwork into the country when suddenly countries were boycotting China – concerned China was going to support Russia against Ukraine. And hearing about our host’s different business ventures and traveling and quarantining with her thirteen year old son. The only bad part of the meal was when the museum owner started talking Philly sports and I shamed my brothers by having no clue.
At some point Dan and I got frantic texts and calls from Morton. The BoyScouts had driven the couple hours to their camp sight and then were forbidden entry. We believe there was a case of Covid in the region and so they were not allowed to enter. It sounded like there was an hour or two of going back and fourth discussion- could they stay or not -and then they got back into the bus and were driving back to school. Not an unusual story in China. Around 8:45 we had to say, “Goodbye” to go meet Morton’s bus – ending another amazing, eye opening evening. Not the China I thought I was coming to experience, but definitely amazing.
Soon after my last update we had “Back to School Night”. The middle school one started with the middle school orchestra playing. They were amazing. By far the best middle school orchestra I’ve ever heard – and they were just two weeks into school – so very few practices.
A couple days later a parent named Melody invited me to join in a group she organized to go to the Forbidden City. Melody and her business partner, Claire, had started a company that provides the ever increasing number of extremely affluent Beijingers with activities to entertain then and fill their time. We were going to an art exhibit in the Forbidden City and Melody and Claire had organized an amazing array of experts to lead the tour: there was the leading Forbidden City expert on their antiquities, there was the lead curator for the biggest art fair in Beijing, there was an artist who had one of a few contemporary piece that were included in the show … of course they all spoke in Mandarin – well above my one year old level of Mandarin. But Melody either translated or had Rose, a lovely woman who works for her, walk around with me and give me the gist of what was being discussed. The old paintings were stunning and it was interesting to learn that every person who has owned these works would add their personal stamp and often add a few lines of a story to the scroll. I had never noticed before but some of the scrolls had tons of stamps – some owners had stamped the pieces right in the middle! Kind of cool to have this history of where the piece has been right on it – but the idea of past owners of a Michaelangelo, stamping their name in the middle of his piece is pretty crazy from a Western perspective.
After the art tour I started talking to Claire. She was explaining how Chinese parents only want to send their kids to really famous schools they have heard of: Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, and she has been holding meetings introducing parents to fantastic small liberal arts colleges in the U.S. – as she went to one. Ends up she went to Carleton College – my Alma mater. Such a small world! As we laughed about this crazy small world meeting, we strolled over to The Mandarin Oriental Hotel, where, on the roof, our group had drinks and an amazing multi course dinner – where the chef came out and discussed his inspiration for each course. Quite a night!
A gorgeous and delicious desertFantastic wine – and what a label!
The walls in our house are all cement – so hanging artwork is a major challenge. I want to have some flexibility in hanging artwork, so I decided to get picture hanging trim. That arrived two Fridays ago – so I am starting to get work on the walls. I am still figuring out the proper hooks to use so the artwork hands flat on the wall – but I’m excited to be reunited with some artwork I haven’t seen in over a year! When the hanging is a worked out a little better I’ll post some pictures – but it was nice to get some work up on the walls before we had a school leadership party to kick off the Chinese October Holiday.
My kids had off the weekend – Wednesday this week for the holiday. We can’t leave Beijing without risking getting stuck out of the city -if where ever one visits has one case – your return to Beijing will be delayed – possibly for a long time. But we had lots of little adventures.
We went out to dinner – and this was a tofu dish we were served! Sprinkles on fried, eggy tofu. So strange! (but funny)
I heard there was a driving range behind our local supermarket. I couldn’t believe it- but Dan and Morton checked it out and had a great time.
Another day we wandered around a traditional Chinese neighborhood with small wandering streets, called a Hutong- most of these neighborhoods have been replaced in the last twenty years with big green wide streets and large apartment buildings. We found a vegan restaurant for lunch. They had this tofu duck on the menu. So crazy!
And then Celia found some candied tiny crab apples to eat along the route. The weather was ideal -and we had a lovely time.
Last day off from school, Morton and I were invited to join a family volleyball game. It was a fun way to get to know some new families.
Morton’s in the middle with the orange shorts.
Since the kids have been back in school – and over this past weekend, I went to the big Beijing Picasso show – which was a bit odd with some copies – but there were some lovely pieces and I enjoyed getting to know a couple women I went with.
I also played some tennisOur new table in the shop
And went shopping at a furniture store that I wanted to buy everything – there were so many beautiful things and for similar prices as IKEA. I wish I had a bigger home in New York – I’d buy everything!
