BEIJING - Saturday

We're trying to figure out what kind of city Beijing is and at this writing it's still a mystery. Of course we haven't been here very long, and the neighborhood of our hotel is somewhat sanitized and architecturally boring with enormous and I do mean enormous buildings that tower over the 8 lane streets that are always teeming with cars and bicycles. I think we're a little nervous about venturing into other neighborhoods handicapped as we are with our non existent Mandarin.

The first night at the hotel we met a family from Bklyn who also came to Beijing for our tour and who came early to give themselves time to get over jet lag. What a joke that is. Everybody in our family and in theirs is still sleeping at inappropriate times and waking up in the middle of the night. Maybe we should have done the jet lag diet! Anyway we wll went out together on Saturday morning to see what we could see. First off we took the new subway. So modern, clean and very futuristic. It's so clear what a force the Olympics has been on Beijing with the massive construction, and other initiatives. I was interested to know that there is no smoking in restaurants and you will be charged for asking for a plastic bag in a shop.

Anyway we went off to Tia'an men Square just to see what was there. And what is there is a very large square indeed which is really not so interesting looking unless you remember that the
student protestors were crushed by tanks in 1989 or so. And then it's interesting. However on this humid Saturday morning it was full of tourists, Chinese families protecting themselves from the sun with lilac colored umbrellas, children in party dresses and a sprinkling of oh so thin Chinese military moving around purposefully.

We went off to a dumpling restaurant that we had read about in the WSJ and finally found a cab to take us there. Like cab drivers world wide Beijing drivers are a grumpy lot but in their case they never seem to have any knowledge of where you want to go. We always get there but it seems to be a major production. Great dumpling house and Arnie was in hog heaven. He loves Chinese food and anything that is not moving seems to be fair game for him. So after plates of dumplings with lamb and coriander or pork and carrot, it was wonderful to watch the two girls go slack jawed in astonishment at this large earthenware bowl covered with a two inch layer of ed peppers. The waitress scooped off alol the peppers and what was left was fish that I certainly didn't touch but I loved the drama of the presentation.