The Not So Forbidden City cont.

I’m sorry I had to cut the last part short, but the timing around here is tricky. Trying to balance sleep with exhaustion and seeing everything makes it difficult to write the blog at the same time everyday. Anyways most of our time yesterday was spent in the Forbidden City. We got there around 12 and didn’t leave until 5. It took that long to see everything, but we also wanted to take our time and not have to rush. On the way out the most random thing in the world happened. We are passing the biggest building again on the way out and decide to get a picture with the Hill flag that max had made and the next thing we know some girl walks by and says, “The Hill School?”, “Hill sucks go Lawrenceville.” Instinctively we start beating her in the Forbidden City and kick her down a giant flight of stairs as we quickly walk away like nothing happened. No but she really said that. Before Max could punch her in the face we peacefully explained to her how she was mistaken, as well as letting her know that “everybody knows…L’Ville blows.” As Max explained to her that we beat them in every sport including a 6-0 record in Ice Hockey, the most important sport, she quickly realized she was wrong and joined us for a picture with our Hill flag in defeat.

After spreading joy and knowledge all over the Forbidden City, we left and took the subway to meet up with one of Max’s friends from Carleton that we had met the night before, named Alex. Alex had planned a really nice dinner for us at the oldest place in all Beijing to eat the most famous dish from Beijing, the Beijing duck. The restaurant he had made reservations at is literally the nicest place in town and happened to be booked for that night, but because he knew people he was able to get a table arranged for us that isn’t normally used as a table. The dinner was amazing. We had appetizers of cucumbers and duck liver in a mustard sauce, while we drank coconut milk from a Chinese Island they said was the Chinese version of Hawaii. For the main course we had purple sweet potatoes, camel hump, duck heart, duck brain, and of course the real Peking duck. The sweet potatoes were not as sweet as normal, but were okay. The camel hump was delicious. It had a great sauce with chili peppers and orange slices that made it sweet and spicy. The meat itself was tough like jerky and was really thinly sliced. The duck heart was really good too and tasted like chicken, go figure, but was a different texture. It wasn’t like bloody or anything, it was actually kind of dry but had good flavor. The duck brain was pretty gross. I actually don’t want to talk about it. The Peking duck though was really really really good. The way you eat it was like fajita’s almost. The duck came out and was cooked, not like steaming, but was hot. Then you take a tortilla or lettuce leave and put the duck with a little piece of cucumber, celery, and cover it in the delicious plum sauce. The tortilla’s were really thin and were pretty small so you were really making like bite size wraps, but they were so good and the plum sauce was delicious. This restaurant was so cool though, that they bring out your duck after its roasted and show you before they cut it into the slices. They also give you a card with the exact number your duck was of their total existence, as well as a website where you can go to see how your duck was raised as well as what it ate and where it was from. I would tell you the number of the duck right now, but I have the card and no Max to read the Chinese number for me. Sadly to say my Chinese numbers stop at like 99.

So after we stuffed our faces with duck organs we met up with another one of Max and Alex’s friends from Carleton who happened to be doing an internship in Beijing this summer and his study abroad in the fall, named Cameron. We checked up on George who was still not feeling well and went out to chill at a tea bar and play a little poker. Needless to say the best man ended up winning poker and walking out with about 250 RMB which equals about $40. After the tea bar we went to a bar bar called Lush and ended up spending the money on drinks for the 5 of us while we hung out for the rest of the night.

Taking it easy, we left the bar pretty early and went back to the hotel where George was finally feeling better. Needing a good night’s sleep we got ready for a great date with a great wall.

Marty