This room was our bedroom for the past five days in the village of Ilanlik.
We were guests of our friend A. in his parents’ home.
Lots of good stories to tell about nights sleeping under the moon in this Muslim ethnic area, the desert of western China.
We are visiting our friend A. and his wife H. in western Xinjiang Province this week.
Internet connectivity is spotty at best. We will post again when we can. Continue reading “Western Regions, the desert and friends”
Beijing on a hot hot day in mid-August is filled with street life. Beijing life happens on the street, talking, cooking, eating, shopping, card-playing, napping. I’ve seen lots of babies and children giggling and playing with their adults, lots of people walking their dogs. Old people stare at us and smile when I say ” Nihao”. Continue reading “Beijing on Holiday”
As 10am approached, I packed up my projects and we headed around and around the corners of the warren until we found Black Sesame Kitchen again, this time with the bright sun streaming through their windows. Coco and Michelle and Chefs greeted us again. Unlike when we were the first to arrive for dinner the previous evening, we were among the last to arrive to a full class of 11 international adults learning how to make basic Chinese dumplings “from scratch.”
Here’s how to make a handmade dumpling.
Continue reading “Beijing Dumplings”
First order of business: buy a cheap mobile phone…sound familiar?
After our long bike ride, we took a shower and changed closed because we were DRENCHED with sweat. That felt a lot better, and Alison promptly fell asleep on the bed. As much as I wanted to do the same, it was 5pm and I needed to get a phone to be able to communicate with the tour guides on our next two stops.
I went back to the busy street near our hotel, and thankfully everything was now open. I scanned each shop on the side of the street where I remember seeing the shop and eventually it appeared: a small stall, no bigger than a closet with a glass case displaying his wares — many different iPhone types, and then a few cheepo Nokias. Perfect! RMB200 later (I’m sure I should have haggled and I’m sure I was over charged, but $35 for a new Nokia seemed fine to me…) I waked out with a working, texting phone! I immediately texted Michael’s number, and he immediately texted me back. Hooray!
Having gotten that done so quickly, I decided to figure out where Black Sesame Kitchen was located — we had signed up for a dumpling class there on Saturday. It’s also in a hutong, not far from our Courtyard 7 Hotel hutong, except they were located in a small bit that had been built into the courtyard space by subsequent generations of residents over the centuries, so you entered a gate into is best described as a “warren” turning left, then right, then right, then right, then left every few steps until you enter a small open space in front of Black Sesame Kitchen. I was greeted by Coco, one of the workers who speaks English, and I confirmed that I would arrive for the dumpling class the following day. She asked: where will you eat tonight? I said that we would like to find a nice duck restaurant, and she told me where she likes to eat duck, but then she said: Would you like to eat here? She showed me the menu, written up on a small chalkboard on the wall, and it looked like a compilation of many many dishes that I’ve cooked, or wanted to cook, but would love to experience when done by a skilled chinese chef. She said they had two open spaces around the two communal tables they sit people at, so I said I would ask my wife and get back to them.
The BSK space is probably no more than 100 feet from our hotel room, but, as they say in Maine, “you can’t get there from here.” Still its only a five minute walk around the warrens and the lanes, and when I described the option to Alison she enthusiastically said YES so I confirmed and we showed up at 7:00pm on the dot.
Continue reading “Beijing Black Sesame”
First day on vacation HAS to be a big day: you’re excited about arriving in a new place and you want to see EVERYTHING right NOW…and boy did we try.
Our first order of business was to find and buy a cheap phone because the one I brought from Maine (an old Droid) mysteriously would not charge. I had spotted a phone stall on the main street just above our hotel the night before s so at 9:00 we went back to the main street to look for it. Shutters everywhere. There was very little street life (at least compared to the night before) and nothing was open. I guess our area is all about the night life.
One of the things I really liked about our hotel, as I browsed among the choices, was that they offered free access to bicycles, and many people we talked to who had been to Beijing told us that biking was a great way to travel around the city. After our failed attempt to find a phone stall, we returned to our hotel around 10am and picked up our bikes. They came with locks that were fixed to the bikes, and nice baskets on the handle bars. They were both one speed with sketchy brakes, but they basically worked.
Continue reading “Beijing Big Day”
We took Air Canada on our last trip to China and liked it so much (comfy, good food, GREAT on-demand entertainment system which really helps make those 14 hours “fly” by, and of course good price) we took it again. Either their mapping system is different, or the route really is different Beijing vs. Shanghai, but this time our map line went EAST over the arctic ice (there’s still ice up there in August!), instead of west before dropping in over Siberia crossing over the Chinese northern boarder before landing in the haze that blanketed the City today.
We’re not sure if it was an actually *foggy* day in Beijing, or if this is the infamous Northern Chinese smog…?
Continue reading “Beijing Arrival”
Stay tuned: if The Great Firewall permits me, I will update the RectorSite with posts from our trip to China.
Why and Where?
Chillin’ in a corner of Toronto Pearson airport waiting for the LONG flight to board
Continue reading “Heading East”
Every so often there’s a story that you read/hear/watch that stabs deep into your mind, your head shivers, you blink your eyes and softly mutter “whoa!” Here is one of them, which I heard the beginning of on Maine Public radio during their “Public Affairs” hour today just as the Farmers’ Market ended at 1pm. I had heard the promo for this story, which sounded interesting but I wasn’t prepared for the five minute slice I heard, about ten minutes into the story, and I wrote down the name of the program and it’s source “Transom.org” before I went about my normal banking and shopping after the market.
Essentially this is a visit inside the life of one of “The Tribe” of foreign correspondents upon whom we depend for some picture of the violent parts of this world. I think, in general, we romanticize their lives when we ever bother to stop to think about what it takes to do the work of telling the story of war. However, I’m sure we also know, deep down, that the Nora Ephron script in our head is FAR FAR different from the reality of the job. Luckily, one of “The Tribe” has taken the time to share a bit of her life with us — the good, the bad, and the scary.
Prepare an hour of time to listen straight through because you won’t want to stop it once you start.
BTW: You can listen on your computer using the link above, OR you can try to find it on iTunes or through your favorite Podcast app (I use Podkicker on Android right now) to listen on the ear buds while you’re in a less static mood (traveling, gardening, etc.).
RectorSite 