We are in Beijing to visit Mr. and Mrs. G, dear friends who currently live and work here. Due to a scheduling mismatch related to when Kate has to be at her summer job, we have arrived in China while Mr. and Mrs. G are still away on their trip abroad. Being the world’s best hosts, they hired someone to pick us up from the airport. We were delayed in Hong Kong and worried that our driver might have given up, but when we emerged from customs at 1:30 am, bleary-eyed from almost 24 hours of travel, there was Dennis. Yay! Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. G!
The next morning, I got to meet up with a fellow Wallie (the nickname of people with MFAs from Warren Wilson College). This Wallie is a friend of Mrs. G’s (who is very good at connecting people) and it was really wonderful to meet up, drink coffee and talk about life, reading, and writing. Also, she helped me buy a sim card for my phone, a process that happened 100% in Chinese. Since I only know three phrases in Mandarin, I very much appreciated the help. When it comes to signing up for a data plan, “hello,” “thank you,” and “you don’t look very well,” would probably not have cut it.
Then it was lunch — delicious cold noodles from a cart–and onto Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
The cold noodles we’d had for lunch were so good, we decided to check out Wangfujing Street, one of several areas in Beijing dedicated to street food. And there were many, many delicious things to eat.
And, there were lots of things that stretched my sense of what constituted “delicious.” It also seemed that anything that could be roasted, toasted, or fried and put on a stick, was.
We ended the night with something that has universal appeal: jasmine tea-flavored soft serve.
So cool! Glad you got there safely. Wasting no time, I see. Have you had a jianbing yet?
Jianbing…yes! Our plan is to eat one for breakfast everyday. I’m serious. SO good.