16 July 2009

Peichen’s Family

Day two kicked off a little later in the morning (common around Chinese, when they start talking about times prior to 9am just nod and smile). In Beijing odd and even numbered vehicles were restricted from driving on certain days of the week during the Olympics (an unsuccessful attempt to clear the air). This was reduced to one day per week post Olympics and for Song and Peichen that meant today. So we all walked over to Song and Peichen’s apartment where Peichen’s parents were staying and said g’day to those guys.

The view from Song and Peichen’s place

Tiff and I went with Song and her mum to a shopping center to get some shoes for Song’s dad and myself. Tiff and I were fascinated by the way each level was dedicated to certain merchandise. For example there was an entire floor devoted entirely to shoes and handbags (mostly shoes). The next level was woman’s lingerie where Tiff and Song spent considerable time looking at different bits and pieces. We had lunch with songs mum at one of the restaurants in the food court, did a bit more shopping. I should probably mention that shopping is a little different over there, when you choose your item the assistant writes a note with the item code and the price, you take that to a cashier, pay and collect a receipt, you then take that back to the assistant who in the meantime has wrapped up your purchases. When I say wrapped up I don’t mean chuck into a bag like they do over here, I mean wrapped in colorful boxes, tied with thin paper and ribbons, even when I went to grab a book it was wrapped in red tissue paper and had a piece of twine expertly tied around it.

The floor with shoes on it

The way things are presented in Beijing is really exquisite from the shop décor to the way each piece of merchandise leaves the shop.

Hu Jintao’s Place

We met back up with Peichen, who had been organising various bits and pieces for the up coming ceremony. Jiaao and a couple of Peichens classmates had arrived so we all headed out to a huge out door restaurant for dinner. When I say huge this thing was massive it would have been around 150M long, it spanned three long buildings and there was as much indoor seating as out. The wait staff used walkie-talkies to communicate with each other and the kitchen. The tables all had a gas burner in the middle that was designed to hold a large pot of boiling water. The wait staff brought out a massive array of food and a fair amount of it went into the hot pot, as it was required. The conversation, food and beer flowed easily and it was well into the evening before we decided to move again.

Banquet

A cool way to keep everything together

We went down to the area just beside Houhai and Qianhai lakes to an exciting little labyrinth that runs parallel to the lake and was full of bars, restaurants and people. In the open spaces people were playing traditional Chinese games, one of which looked like hacky sac except the item that was kicked had a spring on the bottom and feathers on the top a bit like a giant shuttlecock. The best way to describe the atmosphere with its over whelming sites, sounds and aromas was magic.

Soaking up the atmosphere with mates

Chilling in Beijing

We walked around the outside of the lakes, eventually stopping for a few beers at one of the bars that had roof top seating. From our vantage point we could see across to the Bell Tower, after a few beers and much conversation (mostly in Chinese, Tiff and I soaked up the ambience) we decided to call it a night and walked out to the main road. It was about this point that tiff had her first run in with the dreaded squat toilets, the mighty squat toilet is basically a hole in the concrete and unlike the cubicles we have here, they only have small half wall partitions and no door. Tiff was able to overcome her stage fright despite the antics that she bore witness to.

By this stage Jiaao was having flash backs to all the walking we made him do when he came down to my parents place for Christmas and was asking himself how it had come to pass that we were making him walk in china where other forms of transport are so inexpensive. Jiaao looked so happy when he finally flopped into the taxi to take him home.