Cockroach Clean-up

Walking around Beijing I always look at the many red banners hung in various places. These banners often relate to political things like encouraging people to work towards development, economic issues or (on some older ones) supporting the Olympics. I can't always read the signs easily, but I like to try. Anyway, on Saturday I was on my way to go shopping for a few things in another district and I noticed this sign:

It says "Everyone take action, Wipe out the cockroaches"

I looked it up when I got home and found that a Beijing-wide cockroach eradication campaign started on November 15. I'm all for it!

Merry Christmas from Beijing!

Zoe and I had a nice Christmas here in Beijing, although we certainly also missed everyone back home a lot. 

On Christmas Eve I had class in the afternoon, and then I met up with Zoe and we went to Wudaokou to buy some DVDs, walk around and have dinner. On our way to the first DVD store (which is inside a hotel complex) we spotted a Santa and had to take a few pictures with him. We also got a couple with the lights display (and with traffic reflector cones thrown in for some extra brightness).

We picked out lots of DVDs, then we walked to Issin, a Japanese restaurant, for dinner. The walk to the restaurant was interesting and the streets were utterly packed with people. There were people selling Chinese New Year decorations, as well as Christmas decorations, socks, santa hats and even light-up devil horns for sale. 

Here I am in the restaurant:
Here's the only picture we got of the two of us:
After we finished eating we stopped in a bakery to pick up some snacks for our movie watching that night. Zoe had me pose under this decorated tree in the store...haha.
After we got our baking we headed back to the dorm and spent the rest of the evening in Zoe's room watching movies. We watched the Shrek Christmas special and Home Alone. 

On Christmas Day I had class at 8am, and I had bought a bunch of snacks to bring to share with my classmates. Hardly anyone came so we watched movies and ate instead of having class. 

After class ended at 11:30 I met up with Zoe and we went to the local coffee shop I sometimes hang out in and had lunch. The place had a few Christmas decorations:


Me, not looking into the camera so as to avoid photo face....
Here's the food we ordered. I had tuna and garlic pasta and Zoe had bacon and garlic pasta. It was tasty, but definitely was like an Asian version of standard olive oil pasta.
It's a bit out of order, but here's the entrance to the stairs that lead up to the cafe, all decorated for the holidays.
After eating we headed towards the subway station. On the walk there you have to cross over a river and it is now totally frozen over.
We took the subway to Andingmen and walked South through various Hutongs, exploring in shops and just taking our time enjoying the sun before we got hungry again for dinner.
Me looking at something:
Some of the hutongs had their doors open...sometimes the doors opened on just another alleyway, but sometimes they opened onto Siheyuans (courtyard homes). It was interesting to peek inside, but we also obviously stuck out as it seemed most people in the area were residents and knew everyone else. At one point as we were looking at a map an older man came and helped us with directions. He was quite sweet. We also saw some old Grannies....I wish I could've taken their pictures, they were beautiful.
This picture is of the inside of a courtyard home....there's a broken glass display case just inside the entranceway. You can also see the screen wall (yingbi) just behind the case. The sign on the left says they aren't renting rooms so don't just walk inside...I guess lots of tourists and other explorers must have gone in and bothered the residents before.
Here are some pictures of the main street just outside of the hutong alleyways:

Here's a cute little bar that was inside one of the hutongs. I like the sign, "The Here It ts! Baycafe." Cute.
Here's a view through another doorway. I would've loved to look inside more but I think both Zoe and I would have felt rather weird and intrusive going down such obviously residential lanes.
Down one street we came across what looked like a Siheyuan undergoing total renovations. My guess is that it is being fixed up for a wealthy person, but maybe it's for a shop or something else.

The pile of construction materials outside:
Some old men playing a game...and a sweet dog:
Another alleyway:
On one of the main roads we came across a model shop which sold some pretty fancy stuff, including the creepy Alien head.
After walking through all the residential hutongs we then entered a totally renovated, touristy hutong area on Nanluoguxiang. There were lots of interesting shops with very expensive things. It seemed the mark-up on Chinese New Year decorations was about three times the price I paid for the same things in a different part of the city.
Here are some Chinese gnomes:
After walking around for a few hours we were ready for some dinner. Zoe's boyfriend had kindly researched places for us to eat and found a particular Korean restaurant that was highly recommended and delicious:

The inside was a bit too dark to get any really good pictures, but I did manage to get one of the goldfish stream that split the restaurant in half:
We went with the Christmas set menu for 158 rmb (split between us) which is about $30 Canadian, or $15 each. It was so tasty! The perfect meal for our somewhat unusual Christmas in Beijing!
Here were the tasty snacks we had before the main dishes started coming out:
The salad and the ginseng which despite not looking fabulous in the picture were really delicious.

More of the food....a stew and some fish.
After all the dishes had arrived. Those round cakes were filled with red bean and were SO delicious. Oh and you can see the glasses of mulled Christmas wine that came with the meal.

After eating we walked back up to a main street and took a cab to a place called Ginza mall where we picked up some baking and then, totally exhausted, we took the subway back to the dorm. We got into comfy clothes and then snacked and watched movies until late. We watched Fred Claus and Mamma Mia. 

When I came back to my room my roommate was already in bed so I couldn't skype properly with my family, but I did get to see them briefly on Christmas morning...it was a bit weird as I was only able to type but they could speak to me. And then when I got up Scott was over at my parent's place so we all skyped and I opened the gifts Scott had mailed me.

It wasn't a standard Christmas, but I still had a very nice time. Thank goodness Zoe is here so that we were able to spend the holidays together.

I hope everyone in Canada (and in England, Hong Kong and everywhere else) has had a wonderful, happy Christmas. My love to you all.

Webcams and snow

Can I just say how much I love having my own computer here? I can't believe what a huge difference it makes and it's so different from my last experience in China when I had to walk to internet cafes to use the internet, or I had dial-up internet only.

I've been feeling jealous of what will most likely be a gorgeous white christmas back home...and I definitely miss the cozy Christmas season. I've haven't experienced it recently due to being in Asia both this year and the last. Here's Dad and the lovely Christmas tree (and me in the tiny box in the corner with my miniature tree):

Paul and Brittany waving for the camera:
My everyday desk set-up...newspaper assignment in semi-progress:
Paul opening a couple of presents:
One sentence almost finished!
Mom and the Christmas tree:
Nearly the entire family....dad is holding the computer up for me to see the entire room.
I also of course often speak with Scott and he showed me some of the snowy weather back home. Here's the view out the apartment window. So lovely!
And Scott looking handsome and happy (although he was actually freezing from standing outside with the computer, showing me the snow):
I miss everyone and am looking forward to my visit home!!!!

Forbidden City

Today I went to the Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square/Jingshan Park area with my soon-to-be-going-home American friends and one Korean classmate. It was SO cold. Low of -16 with a -19 windchill today. Luckily I was prepared and felt a bit like a marshmallow in my thick coat. When we got to Tiananmen my friends wanted to go in to see Mao's body in the Memorial Hall. The Hall was due to close at 12pm and it was already 11:45am. I had seen his body 5 years ago and didn't really feel a need to see it again so I took everyone's bags and waited for them outside. I watched all the touts standing around making people pay 10 rmb to check their bags...what a rip-off. While I was waiting, a Chinese lady, her small daughter and cute, old mother came running along wanting to get in before the doors closed. At first they didn't believe that you weren't allowed to bring in even a small purse, but I showed them my friend's bags and said it was true. Then the lady asked me if I could watch her bags and I said sure. I was amazed she would rather trust a random stranger (and a foreigner at that) rather than the bag-check guys around me. After she was finished she came and got her bag and asked me how much she owed me! Haha, of course I said she owed me nothing at all...But maybe I've just discovered a new way to make some extra cash while I'm in China. :P Here are all the bags I was watching....

Here's a picture of almost all of us after the Mao viewing, with the Monument to the People's Heroes in the background. From left to right: George, Tammy, Gina, Ivy, Daxian, me and Angela.
Kaitlin in front of the monument:
Me in front of the Monument:
Daxian wants to collect a picture of himself in all the different places pictured on the different renminbi bills. So here we are with the 100 rmb note in front of the Great Hall of the People. People seemed to find this a bit odd.
Here's a family posing for a photo in front of the gates. The one grandchild, two parents (they are taking the picture) and a number of elderly grandparents/relatives. They were a cute group!
This picture is rather blurry, but I like the "Happy Boy" on the back of this kid's coat.




A bunch of guys wanted pictures with Kaitlin (but ignored me....perhaps due to the marshmallow coast and the fact that I'm older? Dunno, but I didn't mind). So here's a picture of them all staring at her.
And here she is posing with one of them:
Here's Kaitlin imitating one of the singers from the music video for the song "Beijing huanying ni (Beijing welcomes you)" which was partially filmed in the Forbidden city.
Shadows...
Tammy taking a picture of the only two nanren (guys) with us today.


Jumping shots!
Failed attempt:
Success! But I really need to work on my jumping skills....how come I'm so low?
After the jumping success.
Love this guy's coat:
Inside one of the chambers:


In front of the tree in the garden at the back. The love tree....hence the heart poses in the two pictures.

Goldfish heartily surviving the freezing Beijing winter safe under the ice:
The view of the Forbidden city from the peak of Jingshan:

After this we were all utterly freezing, so we hightailed it home and I am so happy to inside and warm right now. Yay for central heating!! Tomorrow is meant to be even colder, so I might just stay in and work on homework rather than going out in the freezing cold!