Food and a Sunset

The food in Beijing is spectacular. Have i mentioned that yet? Yeah. I have. And I will again. It's really good. Every day i go to lunch with 4 or 5 guys from work. From a menu of 100's of options, we select 4 dishes from a rotation of about 8. And it's fantastic.

So yeah, Food. Check this out. This is Hot Pot. It's a pot, both big and hot with fire and steam and spicy peppers, and fish and vegetables, and delicious broth, and you get to select your fish from the fish tank, and then they kill it with their bare hands.

And it's really, really good.


And this is a Fei Bi, or flying pancake. This is a desert with apples, bananas, and Cinnamon. It's also fantastic.


I've also been cooking a lot, and that makes me happy. I like cooking. I also like Chinese food. And we've already established the food here is great. So it follows that i would like cooking Chinese food. I've even tackled the little problem of not having a clue how to cook Chinese food. I make shit up. We named this one Kai Wen Shi Hong Shou Zhu Rou. Which of course is Kevin's Red Stir-Fried Pork. It was really spicy and really good. I also make a mean Pork Fried Rice.


Um, also, the weather has been amazing. Didn't someone say there was pollution in Beijing? I've seen so many blue skies here. And some killer sunsets.


~Kev

Tuesday Pick-up

I can't remember the last time Tuesday was the best night of the week. I've been talking about Tuesday night pick-up at Deshengmen for a while now. Lately, i've been making a point to come out early and explore the area. Every Tuesday at 8 o'clock a pair of traditional drum and bell bands come out and play in front of Deshengmen. This is Deshengmen:


It's one of the remnants of the old wall around the city. This would be part of the north wall, like a watch tower. Anyway, this is typical of the historic buildings in Beijing. There's so much beauty everywhere you go. Regarding this drum and bell band, a few hundred people come out and listen, dance, commune, even join the band. Free entertainment is everywhere in this city, and everyone seems takes advantage of it in one way or another.


So yeah, we get to play overlooking this every week. Well, i guess it's technically underlooking, since the field is geographically lower. Is it looming in the distance? Is that actually a word? Wikipedia verifies it, but I don't think i've ever written that before. Anyway, here's what it looks like from the field.


Comparing scenic locations for disc, Violet Park in Boulder is a close second. But this is certainly the most enjoyable location i've ever played disc. Even if it is turf, I enthusiastically look forward to my Tuesdays.

~Kev

UPDATE: Tao has videos of everything. Here's one of Deshengmen. It's pretty good and you can even hear the band in the background.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S61_7Dq-zs

I got a kitten!

And then I gave it to Tao.

A friend at work called me in the morning before work. She said she had a present for me. I got to work and she gave me a box, containing the aforementioned kitten. She found the little guy on the way to work. It's probably a month old. Mewing the most adorable tiny mew a kitten can mew, I felt pangs of sadness for my lost cat, Spanky. I really want a cat of my own out here. Tragically, I can under no circumstances have one. This is not due to apartment regulations or anything. It's solely because the lady whose house i'm living in does not like animals. Even though she doesn't live here, and she probably will never live here again, i can't have one. It's really upsetting, but there's little i can do.

Anyway, this lady was insisting that we take it out side and throw it out behind the building. There's no doubt it would die. It was far to small too survive, so she was basically sentencing it to death. There was no way i could let this happen, so i called up fellow cat-lover, Tao. He agreed to look after kitty for a few months until he returns to the states.

Tao and I decided we would be it's uncles. We let it lose in his apartment. After a lengthy debate, kitty decided to leave the confines of it's box and investigate his new home. He immediately went for the dust-riddled area under the bed. Mewing away, we left it to relax. We headed out and, with little trouble, found soft kitten food, whole milk, and kitty litter. Returning, we poured the dude a bowl of milk and he went to town on it.

We also named him, but not until after frisbee. We both decided on Pi. Somehow, in two separate conversations, we both ended up bringing up "Life of Pi", an absolutely incredible book we both adore. There was no debate and it was clear we had just named our cat.

Tao has taken some videos, and I'll link to those ASAP. We must have posted around the same time, because just as I finished writing mine, he posted his. His post brought tears to my eyes, and that's how much i did not want to give up this sweet kitten, Pi.

Anyway...here are the pictures i have to share...


Trapped!

Where am I?

No turning back...


Mid-Mew


We've done our good deed for the day.

~Kev