The Great Wall is not our only adventure today: while our friends had set up the carpool to Mutianyu, they have no plan for getting back. After learning from the Welcome Center staff that the next bus would be a while, we wander out and soon encounter an older man soliciting rides into town. Mandy and Jenny speak with him (Ken and I clueless to what is happening), and soon enough we are climbing into the back of a small van. Before we pull onto the road, the driver shouts for and negotiates with another passenger, who takes the front seat.
The ride is certainly fast. Our driver races through the
countryside, passing cars on the left and the
right — and then slamming on the brakes while passing
in the bike
lane because, well, there’s a farmer
chugging along on a motorized cargo tricycle. But, we make it
into town in one piece, pay the driver his 40 yuan, and
we get off on the side of the road. He points to the other side
of the street, telling us that the crowd there is waiting for
the bus.
Despite not a single sign for a bus stop.
We wait for about 15 minutes and sure enough, a public bus arrives! Being mid-afternoon on a Sunday (or maybe just being in Beijing) means that our bus gets stuck in traffic for two hours on the Jingcheng Expressway. Finally, miraculously, we find a subway station. Just over three hours after leaving the Great Wall, we’re back in Zhongguancun.
I tried a lot of food while in China. Most of it was delicious. Some of it was not.
Breakfast usually consists of rice porridge with steamed buns and tea eggs — hard-boiled eggs that have been cracked and brewed in a mixture of tea and soy sauce. I’m sad I didn’t try this until the end of the second week, because it was pretty darn tasty.
Instead, for breakfast I typically went to one of the 8 bakeries between my hotel and Zhongguancun. And by 8, I literally mean 8: Meetmatzo, Paris Baguette, With Wheat…but I don’t remember the names of the others because they were written only in Chinese. A lot of loaves have a filling of some sort, which can be a surprise when you’re not expecting it. Pretty much everything was delicious.
Most meals in China seem to involve rice. Rice is great. Rice is tasty. Rice is versatile. But sometimes, you’ve just had enough rice for the day. Ken, Karen, and I all got this same feeling one day, and I remembered that there was a pizza place nearby. We really enjoyed the cheese, sauce, and crust that evening.
biggest pizza in Beijing.It’s literally their slogan, and I don’t doubt its truth. This medium pizza is at least 20 inches in diameter, and their large is probably 30 or more.
Ken and I were ordering lunch one day and wanted it for
takeout. Like usual, we pointed at the picture menus to order,
but then we needed to communicate that we wanted to eat
elsewhere. We resorted to translating takeout
on a
smartphone, but we later asked a friend. She suggested we say
dǎ bāo,
which means in a bag.
It worked! Though
we quickly adopted into English:
Where’d you get that? It looks good.
Oh, I dabao’d it from that one place with the green signs.
One night, Jenny and Claire took us design mentors and faculty out for a fancy dinner of traditional Beijing food. It was a beautifully decorated restaurant with very good food. Jenny and Claire ordered 10 dishes to share amongst 8 people. A few of them are shown in the gallery below.