The next few days kept up the same languid pace.
My biggest project for Wednesday was to go grocery shopping and make dinner. It was my first day out on my own, and getting to and shopping at the large farmers' market style produce market was a bit of an adventure in itself. A welcome adventure, though. The market was brimming with colors; with familiar and new fruits, vegetables, tubers, eggs, and grains. I was finally feeling like I was in a foreign country. There were no ex-pats here, no one to translate for me; just me, my smile, and my wallet to communicate.
Dinner was mashed potatoes (from potatoes, not a box!) topped by sauteed tilapia, topped by an olive-tomato tapenade (an old standby of a meal); for sides I made a rice-noodle and cucumber salad and marinated Chinese cabbage.
A few glasses of Chardonnay and an episode of West Wing later, I was soundly asleep.
The next day was only slightly more exciting, and I mean that in the best way possible. I spent the morning finishing up work on modules 7 and 8 of EatWell (yep, still plugging away at the internship). Max came home in the afternoon and took me for a ride on his motorcycle to Houhai to pick up a couple things I wanted, but didn't have time to get the last time I was in the area. Riding through town on the back of a bike was a new perspective, and save the helmet hair and imminent death, I could get used to it.
When it was time to go Max dropped me off at a bookstore about half an hour's walk from home called The Bookworm. It was everything you'd want an ex-pat bookstore to be: three rooms with tables and couches, a full bar, plenty of books old (cloth, hard-bound classics) and new (from Murakami to Harry Potter), a decent menu, and wireless internet.
Max also gave me his mobile for the day, so I was able to coordinate with Suerie, whose office was walking distance from the bookshop. After getting a little bit of my own work done at the MSF Beijing offices, we met up with Max for dinner in the adjacent Sanlitun area. We turned more corners than I can remember before arriving in a nooked-away but bustling Belgian beer hall called The Tree. We feasted on what Suerie calls 'the best pizza in Beijing,' she drank De Konick and Max and I had gin & tonics.
We went home, happy and fed, watched -- you guessed it -- an episode of West Wing, and called it a night.
Today is Friday, 14 Juillet, 2006. Bastille Day. A day for storming into symbols of suppressive authority. I tried to storm into the nearby ChaoYang Park, but was scolded for not paying for an entrance ticket. I hadn't even noticed one was required. Anyway, the student rate was: 0.1 rmb (for anyone keeping track that's one tenth of 12.5 cents, or 1.25 cents). It's funny to pay to walk into a park, but as far as fares go, the fare was fair.
Weeping willows drape their arms effortlessly over a too-green lake. Lovers claim benches, paddle-boats, and hidden glades, while towering apartment buildings skirt the park. It's not so different than Central Park in this way. Well, as long as you ignore the deafening cicadas, Chinese lute music, and traditionally painted gates complete with guardian twin lions. The gathering of elderly men trying to fish in the lake is something of a not uncommon sight here as well.
My big projects for the day have been to send off module 8 to an office in San Francisco (check), finish my Murakami book (check), and catch up on my journal (check). With only a few more days here, I am still enjoying the slower pace of the last few days, but am ready for a little more adventure. Up next... a night on the town, a day full of shopping, and a day trip hiking in the nearby mountains.
