Day 4 : Beijing John Malkovich

We'd be lost without Bo...he's been great and patient and deserves vacation once we're gone. He spent a long time on the phone trying to get us into a hostels and into a trip to the Great Wall since we were leaving our lovely courtyard hotel (called a siheyuan in Chinese). Everything in this country is extremely complicated. Something simple that one person can do in 5 minutes takes 4 people 20 minutes to do. Not kidding.

So, Day 4's adventure started with a very talkative cab driver who was teaching himself French, English, German, Finnish with a dictaphone in his taxi....he was probably pretty annoying but we couldn't understand most of what he was saying. Poor Bo got an earful on the way to our hostel.

The Youth Hostel was full but Bo negotiated us into a room in a "new" hostel just down the street. It was cheap and in a courtyard but had that hutong smell that we have grown to know so well. We dropped our bags and went looking for food as usual. But first, Rebecca was drawn into a clothing store with a very nice and very good salewoman who managed to get a very sweaty Rebecca to try on a dozen jackets. They were pretty sticky. We walked out with only 1 jacket.

The meal was memorable for the bamboo container that the spare ribs were served in, but the food was not great. Note that this was the only restaurant we took from the guide book!

Then we went looking for money...and it started to seem like a quest for the holy grail. two hours later, we gave up and went to the Temple of Heaven, hoping that money would be provided by the heavenly Bo. But, the Temple was in renovation again...thank you Beijing 2008! We had some nice ice creams- like a creamsicle, vanilla ice cream inside an orange sorbet - and then went off to look for money again.

Anyway, we went off to the Silk Street - a large market specializing in silk and counterfeit clothing. Bo deftly negotiate a "Columbia" shirt down to half price. And then we lost our minds. On each floor there were about 50 stalls and in each stall there were at least 2 vendors. We were repeatedly harrassed and grabbed despite our weak "Bao xie xie". It was like the restaurant scene in "Being John Malkovich".

By the time Bo's cousin Yaya came to meet us, we were more than ready for a drink. We returned to Lotus Lane and Yaya provided a quick history lesson on the symbols of the Chinese doors : the more pegs there are in the lintel, the higher the rank of the person. She also explained that the animal guarding the door told us about the social category of the owner in the emporer's court.

Then I got hit by a taxi...but the driver appologized and I'm ok.

Then we ate at the Dowager Emporer's house, in a hidden courtyard house that even the taxi driver couldn't find. Bo explained that it was imperial food which is why the food was so delicate and the restaurant so classy.