Sorry for the delay in this posting. Last weekend was Lunar New Year (in Asia, people celebrate both the solar and lunar new year and the lunar new year is a much bigger deal than the January 1st celebration). We went to Beijing for the long weekend! We stayed really close to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. We went to the Great Wall of China, saw an amazing Chinese Acrobat show, ate Peking Duck and went to a night market where they sold everything from scorpions to sheep testicles. We were told that this was mainly a foreigner attraction and the Chinese don't really eat these things, but you never know! We tried a scorpion, but all it really tasted like was deep fried batter with salt.
We had heard that if you go to Beijing, you must do two things: Visit the Great Wall and try Peking Duck. Well, we wouldn't necessarily agree. The Great Wall was amazing, but we will never try Peking Duck again. The chef comes over to the side of your table and cuts the duck up in front of you. They first serve you a plate of the skin and all of the waiters watch as you put it into your mouth. It basically tastes like deep fried fat. We probably ate about 2 bites of the duck and then ate little pieces of salad. The other chinese food we tried though was really great (although very fatty).
The people were incredibly friendly with wonderful senses of humour. It was actually quite quiet because most of the Chinese leave the big cities to go to the countryside to be with their families. This was both good and bad because it wasn't so crowded, but on the other hand there were many places closed that we would have loved to see.
We went to a tea shop where they served us several kinds of tea and told us about what they did and how they were beneficial to you. There might be something true to this because the Chinese are very healthy, live long and look really young for their age so maybe we should all start drinking lots of green tea.
It was a fabulous weekend although really cold! Here in Pohang it is about 16 degrees and unseasonably warm. It feels like spring!
