KLB - Beijing (14)





A sea of DVDs for sale. About $1.20 each. These stores are literally everywhere.
Because of this, I've become quite a movie buff lately and filled up a whole booklet so far. Tonight I will watch The War of the Worlds and The Longest Yard while chomping down on some dry squid that I picked up at the Korean mart. Thank God for living in Korea Town by the way. I thought my stomach would never get better, seriously. Almost 3 full weeks of the Chinese runs. But finally, after only a few days of Korean juk (porridge) and no meat or Chinese food I am back to my old solid self again. Never thought I'd be so happy to see a big turd before. That juk works miracles. That's the downside about the food here. It's delicious but it's full of bacteria us westerners aren't used too. Even Jake, after a year and a half still gets the runs often. Leaving unflushable floating vegetables in the toilet has become, well, a way of life...

In other news, Jake left for America for his 6 week vacation today, so I have his place all to myself. Nice and quiet. Nice and cool, too. His knock off Samsung standing air conditioner works like the real thing, except it only cost him $180. It must have been 95 degrees out there again today and 100% humidity. Just standing still, waiting for the car to come to take Jake to the airport we were sweating heavily.

I know the updates have been few and far between, but I have been plugging away at the e-book at least. It's just too much stuff to post here about China for a Korea blog and besides the Korean mart and some food there's not a lot Korean I can write about. I may have to start a new blog all together. Some news about that coming very soon. Hang in there and thanks as always for reading...

KLB - Beijing (13)





As promised, a pic of Korean style Chinese food ordered at a Korean restaurant here in Wangjing, Beijing. The jja jang myeong style is unique to this restaurant. The tangsuyuk, or fried pork, was as well. Awesome. Usually in Korea it also tastes pretty good but the pieces are small and there isn't much meat. These pieces are full of meat and the sweet and sour sauce is great: a little spicy and delicious. Very nice.

KLB - Beijing (12)



I finally made my way over to see The Forbidden City, which is across the street from Tianamen Square. The weather was a bit hot and muggy - not really a great day to go and take pictures, but here they are anyway.



Here is what you see coming out of the subway station. A nice view, except for the people. There are thousands and thousands of visitors here every day, especially in the summer.

Lying at the center of Beijing, the Forbidden City, called Gu Gong, in Chinese, was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Now known as the Palace Museum, it is to the north of Tiananmen Square. Rectangular in shape, it is the world's largest palace complex and covers 74 hectares. Surrounded by a six meter deep moat and a ten meter high wall are 9,999 buildings. The wall has a gate on each side. Opposite the Tiananmen Gate, to the north is the Gate of Devine Might (Shenwumen), which faces Jingshan Park.

Construction of the palace complex began in 1407, the 5th year of the Yongle reign of the third emperor of the Ming dynasty. It was completed fourteen years later in 1420. It was said that a million workers including one hundred thousand artisans were driven into the long-term hard labor.




Probably the most common picture taken in Beijing besides somewhere out on The Great Wall.



And, of course, no trip to Beijing would be complete without this inevitable shot.



Further in, me in front of another building. All the buildings start looking the same from the get-go. And to think, there are 10,000 buildings inside.






Typical scenery inside The Forbidden City. Every time I type that it makes me think I wish I came from somewhere with that kind of name. New York sounds so bland in comparison.


Later...



Went shopping and picked up all this stuff. A couple more games, an outfit for the health club, a pair of Abercrombie shorts (never heard of it but I was assured this is a famous brand in America) and some nice outfits for teaching. Never thought I'd be wearing Dockers and Armani shirts in an ESL classroom, but never thought I'd be buying such outfits for $10 each either. Everything here cost me only $50 - thanks to Jake's negotiating skills. I started getting the hang of it myself. The woman wanted 160 RMB ($20) for the Jordan shirt and shorts set but I got her down to 60 (around $7.50) which is probably what she was hoping to get anyway, but still. All you really have to do is scoff and walk away to get a better deal.



Testing out the goods. Not bad at all. The only thing that didn't fit right was the belt, which needs a couple more punches. Also, I now have 8 pair of pants that need to be shortened. Gonna take care of that today, as a matter of fact.

KLB - Beijing (11)



Since I haven't done a good job of taking touristy pictures of Beijing (because I'm just not that interested in going to touristy places) I thought I'd post a link to a site with lots of information and pictures about the usual spots of interest in Beijing. Just pretend like I'm standing in front of all the nice places...


http://www.beijingpage.com/


http://www.beijingpage.com/#photo


Jake and I were going to take a 10 hour trip to Dalian where we planned on relaxing for 5 days, swimming and watching Chinese girls romp around in bikinis. However, my tourist visa is to expire soon. Jake also needed to buy a 6 month extension himself as he's finishing his job this week. We dropped off our passports, but cursed to find out they will take a full week to process.

Unfortunately, a foreigner in China can't register in any hotel without a passport as the communist government needs to know where everyone is at every moment. There's a chance some might let us stay, but it's also peak tourist season so they may be more apt to turn us away. Now we're stuck here in Beijing still, though it's not all that bad. I have a lot of things I want to do here yet. Maybe I will have to get out to some touristy spots after all. I'm semi-interested in seeing the Great Wall at least and maybe the Forbidden City. The weather has been horrendous, though, making it hard to do much. The avergae temperature has been between 36-40 degrees C (just below and just above 100 F) every day + humid as hell, which I can't figure out since most of China is a desert! It's hard to even breathe outside.

Well, I'm going to sweat my way over to the health club for now. By the way, last night I had the best Korean style Chinese food featuring tangsuyuk and jja jang myung, the best I've ever had. Wait until you see!

KLB - Beijing (10)



I woke up at 7:30 AM today by my own accord. I haven't gotten up that early without reason in a long time. It feels good, and I hope I can get in the habit. Not drinking helps, of course. I was drinking almost every day when I first arrived. Then I got sick on fake Carlsberg drafts that I had at one of the downtown bars the weekend before last. I had 6 or 7 mugs and wound up throwing up all the next day and felt run down a few days after that. Turns out several people Jake knows have gotten sick off the same beer. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise cause I haven't had a drink since. I tried to have a couple the other night when I was out, but they made me naseous. Maybe it'll be like the time I got food poisoning in America from chicken parmesan. That was 10 years ago and I haven't been able to eat it again since. OK, somehow I doubt that will be the case with beer, but it's a good idea to take a break anyway before it becomes a bad habit.

So what can I do with all my time this morning? I guess I will study Japanese and Chinese again before going to the health club. Oh, did I mention I joined one a few weeks ago? I figured why not while I'm here. It's a small, inexpensive place full of beefy Chinese guys, a few Koreans and several hot women! I met one Chinese guy who is married to a Korean. As he lived in California for 5 years years before moving to Seoul for a job, he can now speak fluent English and Korean. He and his wife are in China now because his wife couldn't speak a word of Chinese and so she is studying here. He uses the time that she's studying to work out.




I'm back with breakfast. More chow mien noodles and a bag of delicious Chinese dumplings called baozi. Total cost: 8 RMB, or about $1.15. This will fill me up until the evening.




Last night it was KFC. For some reason, perhaps because there is one on every single corner in this country, the KFC is much better here than I've ever had. You also get much bigger portions of french fries and cola than in Korea, though perhaps an American would still consider them to be small size. In Korea they give you about 8 french fries and a third of a regular cola.

As for the e-book, I've got the first 40 pages done. I worked on it all day yesterday. I'm aiming for 100 pages but the file size is getting big, so I may make it two parts. More on that soon.

Do I miss Korea? I can't say as I do. It's odd, but I haven't missed anything from there since I left. I'm sure it would be a different story if I was back in America now or if I couldn't just walk over to the store down the road and buy kimchi chigae in the Korean town. Probably the biggest reason I haven't missed Korea is because I don't miss teaching. Even though it got much much better when Cathy quit, 10 months teaching the same 50-60 kids will wear anyone out. Still, I don't want to be lazy too much longer as it just makes it that much harder to get going again. Thats why I'm trying to wake up earlier and study and exercise and keep up the writing, just to stay active.

Well, time to get off the computer and over to the health club. See you later. Hopefully I'll be up early again tomorrow. I seem more inclined to update in the mornings.

KLB - Beijing (9)



Interesting information about Beijing apartments:


1. I had wondered how all the cars look so clean around here. Jake knows why. Apparently the complexes have a car-cleaning crew. At 5 o'clock in the morning, they go out and wash everyone's car.


2. Every building has a couple of elevator women. In exchange for a room about the size of a closet and with no plumbing, they sit in the hallway and push the elevator button for you as you enter the building.


3. Guards. Every entrance in this place has a guard. These guys are no more than 15 year old boney kids that could be cut in half with a weak kung fu chop. It's very comical to see them when they have to run military style in a group while they're leader shouts at them.


4. Bills. With the exception of the phone, all your bills have to be prepaid. If you run out of credit, the power simply goes off. This has happened to Jake on a few occasions late at night. Fortunately there is a meter in the main hall where you can check the electronic number that counts down your credit. And to prepay, Jake just gives some money to his maid who runs over and pays at the local offices.


5. Heat. Thankfully this won't affect me. According to Jake, the government controls everyone's heat. They turn it on in your building remotely. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when it's on or off and, unsurprisingly, it's usually off.

KLB - Korea Bound


Someone referred me to the following blog as there are a couple of short posts about the books. The author of the site ordered books and has the pics to prove it, including this one that cracked me up and made my day.





It's always nice to see someone out there that I don't really know making innocent Koreans pose with a copy of KLB - Special Edition! That made my day. Thanks, Mike. Very funny photo indeed! Now, if you can only get Tony Blair holding that thing, I'd be set for awhile. Are you ready for the challenge? Oops, wrong country. I guess Mike is not from England, but rather London, Ontario, Canada. I didn't know Canada had a London, but then again, I'm from Liverpool, New York. Well, I guess a new challenge is in order. Maybe Mike can get some of these famous people to hold it! Maybe even Peter North! By the way, I didn't know half the people on that list were Canadians, did you?

Anyway, make sure you check it out Mike's website here: Korea Bound

KLB - Beijing (8)



If you think it's all fun, fame and glory having a blog, think again. I already did this post and I swear, on the very last sentence I hit something by mistake and Explorer froze and crashed. Now I have to do it again!



OK, here it goes. This is what I got for lunch yesterday while Jake was at work. Chow Mien, da bao (to go). I also stopped next door while the food was being prepared and picked up another movie. On the way back I got that ice cold Coke just outside Jake's building at a little store. A mountain of noodles, a movie, a bottle of Coke - all for $2. Just noticed there's only one chopstick sticking out of the bowl? That's how talented I've become with them. I only need one.



Later, I met Jake and his friend Steve from England who took us to a restaurant with pictures on the menu. "Any place that has pictures on the menu in China is a place I frequently visit," he said. It was good, too. We ordered about 5 or 6 dishes. The one in the center is some kind of delicious fish soup. On the left is beef and onions still cooking on a stone plate. Everything was delicious, including the fruit with sweet custard sauce. Very nice!



Today, the stomach was a bit off again, go figure. A lot of bubbling and grumbling, so it was pizza. Ham and mushroom. Just down the road is a fantastic authentic Italian restaurant. Sometimes we eat there on the nice outdoor deck, other times we order for delivery. They have 25 kinds of pizza and an amazing...



Lasagna! This was the best lasagna I've had in Asia, and maybe ever, sorry Mom! It was excellent, even if it was a bit greasy. Who cares! I'm on no diet. With all the runs last week I've lost a few kilograms. (There's a bright side to everything!) They even give you the dish it's cooked in. Western food here is much cheaper than Korea, but still quite expensive for China. The large pizza was $6 and the lasagna was around $5. Worth every yuan to me, of course!



Finally, here is a picture of Jake and his girlfriend. She's 22, a university student, very pretty and has a really warm-hearted personality. Not only that but this girl thinks nothing about making dinner, washing the dishes (she feels bad leaving them for the maid), giving Jake, that slimebag, a long massage (and whatever else he wants!) every night she's here and just being sweet and kind to him in general. Now, let me clarify: she doesn't just do all these things because she's unempowered as a woman and hasn't seen enough Oprah yet. No, she simply is a sweet and gentle femine creature who genuinely enjoys selflessly pampering her lover. According to Jake, Chinese girls are just like that. Women of the world, take note!

OK, so I sound jealous. The truth is, I'm not. I'm not ready to dive into another relationship, to be sure. And, I'm actually very happy for him. After hundreds of girls and one or two relationships gone kaput, "I've finally found one I can actually think about marrying, dude," he said to me with a straight face. "She's a keeper." He's quite a character. I've been taking a lot of notes...