Feb 28th - The Emperor's New Skates

We have a busy day ahead of us. It's all fun stuff, but I'm starting to realize that being a tourist can be tiring! First off, we went out for breakfast, which I must say was quite scrumptious. I never imagined that breakfast burritos were popular over here, but you'll find whole restaurants dedicated to wraps. You just sit down, choose your fillings, and wrap it up. We had roasted pork, fried eggs, bean sprouts, potatoes and green onion in ours. Just writing this is making me hungry again. I'll try to wrap this up as soon as possible.

After breakfast, we hopped on the subway train. We literally hopped too, as there is about a 6 inch gap between the platform and the train. This was an adventure worth telling about. The subway is a pretty inexpensive form of transportation here in Beijing. 2 Yuan will take you just about anywhere in the city. None of this paying extra for more "zones" crap like back in Vancouver. My wife is putting me to the test today. She's making me go up to the little window to purcahse our tickets. It might sound easy in principle, but for an Anglophone like me, even remembering the word for "two" can be difficult. It's doubly hard when they use different number systems depending on what you're counting. If it's two tickets, you say "Liang zhang piao". If counting, you say Ee, Ar meaning 1,2. Wierd, huh?

Now that we have our tickets, it's time to board the train. Here's something odd: they have people working on the platform who have the simple job of pushing, that's right pushing people onto the train. Back home, bus drivers will politely say "Move to the back please". In Beijing, it's more like "You don't wanna move to the back, then I'm gonna do it for you. We can fit another 30 or so people on this train, guys."

We reached our destination after about 20 minutes in Sardinia. Somebody on that train was a boozer, because even at this early hour, I could smell the sauce. We got off the train, walked up the hundred or so stairs and were on the street. We were looking for Tiantan park - the site of a few temples, museums and things. Oh, and it's also the main hangout for Senior Citizens to like to sing opera, dance and play strange instruments that you won't find at Long & McQuade. We walked down this long hallway, which I'll call "Music Alley". I was strolling through a crowd of people just as the music started, and I discovered that I was in the middle of a Senior Citizens' Dance Party, or Retro Boogie, if you will. I busted out a couple of moves, to the applause of the locals, and then I did the "Walk like an Egyptian" off the dancefloor. I always like to leave on a high note.

After Arthritic Electric Circus, we walked around to the Emperor's Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. Now, I'm not a religious guy, quite the opposite in fact, but I guess Ancient China was full of tablet thumpers who believed in all sorts of legends, folklore, and worshipping things like sheep, corn, the sun and the moon. The big round temple was at the crest of a big hill, so you could see a panoramic view of the city of Beijing. Boy, that view must have looked a lot different in the old days when the temple was first built. There was probably less smog and not as many "Beijing 2008 Olympics" billboards.

We walked around some more and stumbled upon the "Echo Wall", a place that music nerds and audio engineers would love. It's a perfectly round wall, and when inside, people can stand on opposite sides of the ring and hear each other's voice perfectly. This sounds pretty interesting in principle, but when 50 or 60 people are trying to do it simultaneously, you get a frightening mix of yells, mostly from the dude standing next to you, screaming at the top of his lungs. Wait a minute, that's the rummy from the subway! And I'm pretty sure he's here alone. Yeah that's him alright. I'd recognize that lovely aroma anywhere. Sort of a mix of Gin, dirty laundry and cigarette butts. His smell was echoing inside my nose, so I figured it was time to leave.

I was getting hungry now, so I figured it was time to grab a snack. You can buy street meat all over this city - lamb skewers, shrimp, even strawberries and pineapples on a stick. I had 3 lamb skewers and i was all set for our evening workout. We were going ice skating!

My wife's cousin is a figure skating teacher at a popular rink here in Beijing. She's damn good too! Apparently she was the Chinese National Champoin a few years back, and just missed going to the Olympics in favour of someone younger. She was busy giving a lesson, but she made sure we were given skates, and granted access to the ice. What a feeling! When you've skated maybe once in the last decade, it's kind of awkward when you step on that ice again. Needless to say, I didn't attempt any triple axles or inverted sow cows. i just did a couple hundred laps, mostly of the forward persuasion. My wife was still a little sore from climbing the Great Wall the day before, so she wasn't as enthusiastic as me. Her cousin was flying around, teaching a young girl how to prance and dance on ice. Actually, she has a 9-year old daughter, who strapped on the skates to join us, but only after she finished doing her homework in her mom's office out back.

The daughter, whose name is Vivian by the way, was pretty talented. I guess when you get to be a rink rat every day, you pick up a thing or two. She was trying to teach me stuff, but I used the old excuse that I didn't want to fall because I on'y brought one pair of pants. Thats the truth! But also, I have a certain reputation to uphold. I am Canadian afterall. We are all born with hockey hair, no teeth and 9 months in the box, and here on the international stage, I wouldn't want to upset my fellow countrymen. I would probably be fined upon my return to Canada, and maybe I'd be banned from watching hockey for 1 year or something.

After we finished Dizzy on Ice, it was time for dinner. I was starving, too. Those 3 mystery meat sticks a gobbled earlier didn't quite fill me up. Somehow I knew though, that I would need to save room for dinner. Oh, and it was glorious. We went to an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. Back home, I've been known to haunt the local sushi joints, and they know they're going to lose money when they see me walk in and then woddle out an hour or two later. I think you call that "Economies of Scale", although the scale is now broken, thanks to all the sushi.

With full bellies, we trotted across the street to cousin's apartment. Upstairs, little Vivian brought me a big bowl of ice cream. Jesus! What was I gonna do with this? I politely accepted it, and hey, there's always room for dessert. I'm on vacation aren't I? We hung out for a little while until I started to fall into a sushi-induced coma, and then we took off, heading again for the subway. I hope they don't push me too hard this time. I might pop! And nobody wants a sushi shower at this time of night.