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Heeeello again, fellas!
Well!! It seems that the new year has also arrived into China, as well. Interesting! And about the question, DO the locals celebrate so-called "rotten capitalistic Festival"? Oh yes, they do! But still, they don't use fireworks until it's their own time to celebrate - which means some time in February. But yes, we got lost - literally, LOST - into a place called "The Place" (No kidding! It is REALLY called as "The Place"), where a HUGE audio/video-show was displayed onto a some sort of display screen above the people. Yes, ABOVE the people. And when the moment came - huge sprayings of confetti began, and people were cheering "Happy new year" (presumably - I don't know Chinese!) to each other.... And boy, there WERE the people! Must have been at least a thousand of them under the same "Place". Phew!
But otherwise, expect that one certain case, whole city was doing quite well on its own, seemingly undistrubed by the fact that somewhere it's New Years Eve. Well, at least it was a totally different new year's eve for us!
And what have we been doing throughout these couple of days? Well.... Walking. Oh, and walking. And walking. Walking, walking and yes, walking! There's SO much to see in here - but well, the other part of walking means that... Umm, sometimes you'd just get lost. And ehm - so have we!
We've approximately covered about 15 kilometres per day (approximately!) by just walking around. And getting lost! Which is caused by the fact that we stopped thinking while we walk - because we were so tired from walking - that we forgot to WATCH were we walked. And turning around a wrong corner in a HUGE city? Well - there certainly are a LOT of turns to turn in a city this big. So, as a conclusion, it means we got lost. Yesterday we walked from noon 12 to around 21 in the evening. We succesfully covered the business-section of Beijing during the daytime (from 12 to 18), and when we decided to head for the evening market close to the Tian'anmen square... Ehm, that 15-minute trip turned out to be nearly one-HOUR trip of surviving. "Now, where the hell are we?!" "Ehm, let's find some landmark!"
...well, eventually, everything turned out to be fine. Here we are, alive and well - still!
The reason to head for the evening market was - obviously - to experience something new.
In this case, it meaned something new to EAT.
And.... Well, China has SOOOO much to offer for a couple of hungry Finns. This time, we tried out 1) sea horse, 2) little scorpions, aaand.... 3) a BIG scorpion! Om-nom-nom!!
Well, I truly have to admit, the idea of putting some of these in your mouth COULD be... Disgusting. All of these were deep-fried and properly handled (at least hopefully!) to get rid of everything poisonous. And they just were there - on a stick. Waiting to be eaten.
First of all, the sea horse tasted like.... Bitter-ish. And it was somewhat... Crunchy. So, it could have been like a very sour potato chip - all that remained from the taste was the salt and the grease left from deep-frying.
When the sea horse tasted bitter, the tiny scorpions tasted like..... Nothing. Only some reminiscent of grease and salt remained, while the pieces of that deep-fried crawler crunched in the mouth. A crunchy snack, that's what these all are! And while the sea horse and the tiny scorpions cost around 20 RMB's per stick, it could be said that a bag of potato chips would be cheaper, and there would be more to eat in that!
But then.... Oh my. How about that BIG scorpion?! I mean, REALLY big!! A size of my palm, one HUGE claw still sticking out from the charred body of that pest, and long and dangerously-looking poison tail still poking out like it would still sting - painfully! Aaand... It had still some hairs sticking out from its body. I truly admit, I was freightened. Scary crawler - yet the fact that I was supposed to EAT this!
And the taste? AND THE TASTE?!
There's one little fact. Notice, that I said "charred body". And by "charred", I mean CHARRED! Okay, I understand why this little thing was so black - it was scorched under a HIGH temperature to make it safe to be eaten. And how did it affect to its taste? Well.... I could say, it tasted like a sausage. To be exact, it tasted like the SKIN of a VERY BADLY CHARRED SAUSAGE. Yuk! So, the bits and pieces of that crawler just crunched within my mouth, leaving nothing but a bad, burnt taste behind. And the heating process must have been REALLY intense, for the scorpion's torso was completely hollow inside. No taste at all - only some crunching and bad stench of something that has been burnt really bad. For the fear factor, the scorpion's a must-see thing that can be eaten. But for the taste? I WOULD NOT BUY THAT THING AGAIN for that! And considering the fact that this costed me a 100 RMB's..... ****! Wasted my money. Still feeling quite damn much pissed!
But well - the days go on. And so do we! Today we travelled through the Tian'anmen square and took a closer look into the Forbidden city. And boy, there's SO much to see - one could easily spend a day or two when looking thoroughly all of the interesting displays! We decided only to gaze a little bit of this and a little bit of that - we're not that enthusiastic about the history of Ming-dynasty, anyway... Ehm! But oh, next tuesday we maybe havo to go back to the Tian'anmen square - we tried to say hello to our "mutual friend", mr. Mao Tse-Tung, but the entrance to his mausoleum was closed for some chinese-written reason. Well, it should be open by tuesday, so, that'll be a new try then!
And behind the Forbidden city rose a hill called "Coal hill" (although I really do not know how that's in English, I took the liberty to translate directly the Finnish translation - so, which makes a healthy assumption that my translation is not correct), which had a temple on top of it. The temple on top provided us with a magnificent view over the city of Beijing - as with the clouds of pollution looming on top of it. A sad fact, which reminds the vulnerability of the nature...
Well, even though we're somewhere in the Orient at the moment, we still have not forgotten our western habits, too! Heh hee, we have taken the liberty to grab a "Western coffee hour" every day, at somewhere western place - which means either McCafé or Starbucks. Oh, well, the capitalism....!
Yet today, as we were searching something to eat, we stumbled upon a yet-another-restaurant-with-chinese-letters-without-any-latin-letters, we saw an interesting thing called "Hot Pot", only for 28 RMB's per person. We HAD to try that - despite the fact that we did NOT know how it was made, we've only heard that it's quite popular around here.
Well! The thing is - the chef's do NOT make it. YOU make it. Yeah, sounds strange, but yes! The waitress took us into a table, with a heatable stove in the middle of it, and then she brought a bowl of boiling oil and spices, ready to be cooked. The meat and the garnishes - it was brought RAW to us. So, the idea was, that WE would cook the meat for ourselves, pick it up from the bowl, spice it with the sauce we had, and then... Eat it!
Okay, sounds simple, but..... Ehm. I bet every time the restaurant's personnel gazed at us, they thought "Goddamn tourists. Messing around without a single clue what to do with those. And looking like the thing's spicy. Bah!"
My god. The spices were.... Predictably, spicy!! I do NOT know HOW they made the peppers taste SO HOT, awrgh! We must have been quite a show to them - and a big embarrassement for the western people. Ehm, good job, we, yay....! Well, we got the food, and the hunger went bye-bye for now, so.... Job (Quite) Well Done!
Tomorrow's going to be a bit interesting, we arranged a trip to the Great Wall. We got a taxi for there and back just for only 600 RMB's (~60 euros), which means that the driver has to drive a total of 120 km, and wait for us for.... Some time! With that price?! My god, try to make that price in Finland! I assure you, won't be that easy, no way!
And well... Wednesday's going to be interesting as well! We booked our overnight train to Shanghai - which means 12 hours on a train. A Chinese train. With Chinese people in it. Going to be...... Adventurous!!
Awh, I'm still not used to sleep on those rock-hard chinese beds. Chinese people MUST have a STRONG back, or something, it feels like it would be softer to sleep on a floor!
But anyway, be it a bed or floor, I guess it's time to sleep, anyway... Tomorrow's going to be a bit interesting - a LONG taxi ride with a taxi driver, who probably does NOT speak a word of English. Well.... Interesting times, indeed!!
Until next time, friends!! Good night to you all - when the sun settles down!
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