China 2004

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion,
through wood and dale the sacred river ran.
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
and sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean.

Tue, 13 Jul 2004

Into the Swing of Things

I’m getting into the swing of things: this morning while I was walking to the internet cafe, I was halfway across a big intersection before I realized I hadn’t looked at the pedestrian crossing light.

But seriously, walking in Beijing takes some getting used to. Most of it is mental: increasing the look-ahead range to account for bicycles, lowering your annoyance threshhold for having to stop, wait, or change directions, overcoming the fear of crossing intersections just feet away from speeding, seemingly out-of-control taxis…

Yesterday, Monday, jet-lag had me up at 7 AM, out on the streets looking for an Internet cafe. Because it was so early, most shops were closed, including the wang ba I had intended to check my e-mail at. After walking all the way to Wangfujing, I hopped on the subway to Xidan, the commercial downtown of Beijing. I picked up the long-anticipated jianbing breakfast, an egg pancake with green onions, chili sauce, wrapped around a square youtiao, a block of fried dough. There was a small net cafe filled with kids playing Counterstrike off in a small alleyway, 3 RMB per hour. As it stands, users now have to show their national ID cards to use net cafes - foreign nationals get to keep their anonymity.

OK, this is getting long. Allow me to summarize. I spent the morning at the Beijing Natural History Museum. Their dinosaur exhibit is impressive, but their human exhibit is a little disturbing (think graphic vivisections in a ‘NO PHOTOS’ room). Another visit to a net cafe, checked trains timetables at the station, and a few phone calls later I hooked up with John for dinner at a Brasilian restaurant on the Snlitun strip. We dropped by this tiny little martini bar hidden behind a construction site—the new Beijing is full of these little sturprises—and then grabbed a taxi back to Dongzhimen station, where we parted. An hour of chatting with roommates (including panda pictures from Chengdu—cute!), a little reading, and I was out for the night.

Food

permalink | Micah/Beijing | 2004.07.13-09:54.00