A dumpling start to the day
Dumplings are definitely a recovery food. They make a good breakfast too, especially when accompanied with cold eggplant smothered in minced garlic and tahini. This now being our third visit back to Gabe's nearby dumpling restaurant, things went pretty smoothly...in fact this time I just wrote our order straight on the piece of paper with the pencil provided. It was supposed to rain, but as we left the restaurant we walked into brilliant sunshine.
Our speed while walking down along the street is inversely proportional to the number of shops we pass. Luckily Kiera hasn't walked into a pole yet...it much be a woman thing to be able to window shop and keeping walking at the same time (all be it slowly).
We did finally make it to the Lama Temple, which is the largest lamasery in Beijing. We passed through the main gate, under the shade of huge ginko trees and wound our way through the many temples with different statues of buddha. The ticket also included a mini-cd (contents as yet known)!
After some more browsing we refuelled with pizza and iced coffee. They make iced coffee here in a cocktail shaker and serve it with sugar syrup on the side - a long black is the standard. Back on the street, we were ready to head for the Temple of Heaven park via the acrobatics theatre to pre-purchase tickets. The tickets are more expensive the further you are from the stage...admittedly you are higher up but you are still further away! Our 6th row centre seats cost us 150Y each, which isn't cheap given the cost of other things in China, but the performance later that night was awesome.
The troupe was from the Chinese Acrobatic Circus School and ranged in age from (I'm guessing) 7 to 16 - so roughly equivalent to the Circus Oz Flying Fruit Flies kiddies. Ignoring the corny "story line" delivered in Chinese by the two "teachers" (and displayed in English on big screens on the side of the stage), the show was very impressive. It started with about 20 kids pressing up into handstands on rows of "horse" benches and holding they for a good 4 minutes while doing tricks with their legs. But there was everything from diabolo, juggling while tap-dancing, tumbling and balance (up to 3 high while spinning poi-es), crazy syncronized tricks on bicycles ending with 12 girls on one bike, climbing poles and saulting back and forth, and a little girl doing amazing one arm handstand tricks (it must be the power-to-weight ratio giving her an advantage!).
Afterwards, we met up with Gabe, grabbed some great thai food for dinner and cruised over to a the Bed Bar (decked out with old opium den beds, but serving great mohitos). Another great day in the 'Jing.
Our speed while walking down along the street is inversely proportional to the number of shops we pass. Luckily Kiera hasn't walked into a pole yet...it much be a woman thing to be able to window shop and keeping walking at the same time (all be it slowly).
We did finally make it to the Lama Temple, which is the largest lamasery in Beijing. We passed through the main gate, under the shade of huge ginko trees and wound our way through the many temples with different statues of buddha. The ticket also included a mini-cd (contents as yet known)!
After some more browsing we refuelled with pizza and iced coffee. They make iced coffee here in a cocktail shaker and serve it with sugar syrup on the side - a long black is the standard. Back on the street, we were ready to head for the Temple of Heaven park via the acrobatics theatre to pre-purchase tickets. The tickets are more expensive the further you are from the stage...admittedly you are higher up but you are still further away! Our 6th row centre seats cost us 150Y each, which isn't cheap given the cost of other things in China, but the performance later that night was awesome.
The troupe was from the Chinese Acrobatic Circus School and ranged in age from (I'm guessing) 7 to 16 - so roughly equivalent to the Circus Oz Flying Fruit Flies kiddies. Ignoring the corny "story line" delivered in Chinese by the two "teachers" (and displayed in English on big screens on the side of the stage), the show was very impressive. It started with about 20 kids pressing up into handstands on rows of "horse" benches and holding they for a good 4 minutes while doing tricks with their legs. But there was everything from diabolo, juggling while tap-dancing, tumbling and balance (up to 3 high while spinning poi-es), crazy syncronized tricks on bicycles ending with 12 girls on one bike, climbing poles and saulting back and forth, and a little girl doing amazing one arm handstand tricks (it must be the power-to-weight ratio giving her an advantage!).
Afterwards, we met up with Gabe, grabbed some great thai food for dinner and cruised over to a the Bed Bar (decked out with old opium den beds, but serving great mohitos). Another great day in the 'Jing.
posted by dan at 7:39 AM
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