We're moving to Tianjin tomorrow, which means I have to wrap up on our adventures in Beijing tonight.

We went to the Forbidden City on Thursday which was lots of fun. It is probably prettier in the spring or fall when it would have more color, but as it was, it was still quite intriguing and beautiful.

Like here, here, here, and here.

And we had a great time sightseeing there.

We did greatly wonder at the multiple basketball courts we saw there... is that what is so forbidden? ;)

We also found while there that as a foreigner you definitely need to be on guard while at these tourist places, because this is where scammers know to find you. We learned to be wary of anyone who immediately came up to talk to us, spoke English very well, and basically kept asking us questions non-stop. Mostly it was just to give us a card for tours to the Great Wall, but having read up on it, there are others who could do worse.

That was also the day we conquered the subway system, which was extremely daunting at first, not knowing if we'd be able to know which stop was ours and how to navigate everything. But, after the first few stops, we were much more at ease. It is extremely affordable, 4 yuan (60 cents US), for the both of us and we can go as long as we need. It's also very accommodating to English speakers because not only does it give the roman lettering underneath each stop's name but the announcement for each stop is repeated in English. Considering how little we see of other foreigners, it's very nice of them to do that.

The subway can be a little scary during rush hour, which seems to be between 5-8 PM (and I imagine in the morning as well). We found this out as we were coming back from our first training on Friday. I wish I could have taken a video of it myself, but I would have been far too likely to be trampled under the enormous hordes of people.

Beijing subway during rush hour

That video will give you an idea, and it was as hard to get out of the train as you see in there. Luckily, Dave found another route we can take so we don't have to go on the overly populated trains. Other than that, it's pretty fun, but as a foreigner you do get stared at quite a lot.

We were in search of any kind of recognizable cheese here, but alas our search has been stymied. The first one we tried looked like it was butter because it came in individual plastic pots and was spreadable, and was kind of whitish-yellow in color, but it did say it was cheese on the package. We took a chance, but it had the texture of Cheez-Wiz with the flavor of whip cream. Perhaps that doesn't sound entirely gross to you, but when you've pasted it on fried potatoes, onions, and sausage- it truly is disgusting. Then we tried what appeared to be regular ol' Kraft single slice cheese meant for sandwiches, which neither of us are fans of even back in the U.S., but we were desperate. Nope, same nastily sweet taste to it. So, we may have to give up on proper cheese for a year, which is probably the saddest sentence I could ever write. :(

Food, Food, Food

This is our fourth day in Beijing and the first we decided to brave the supermarket and actually buy groceries. We've been mainly buying snacks from vendors off the streets or going to restaurants (and since most meals come to a grand total of $5 for the both of us, it's not hard on our wallets). Our favorites so far have been fruit kabobs glazed with a kind of hard sugary syrup, like this:
They have a variety of them, but we liked the ones on the right, called Bing Tang Hu Lu, which is made of Hawthorne berries (had no clue what they were until we saw the English name for it in the store today). Apparently they're only in season in winter, so we better eat them up quick!

The food we've tried at restaurants have been kind of hit and miss. I don't know if it's because of our bodies still adjusting from the jet lag or what, but everything tastes really strong to us.

So we decided to finally buy stuff to do some homecooking. For most of the things in the grocery store, if it's not a clearly identifiable vegetable or meat, we have no clue what it is since everything will be marked in Mandarin. We ended up scouring the place for American food, and luckily found Lays potato chips and orange Fanta. The potato chips come in flavors like Finger Licking Braised Pork and Tomato Ketchup- no luck for our favorite Salt and Vinegar flavor. :( Other than that we got some big boxes of ramen (not sure of the flavors for those either), yogurt which looks like it has beat up cherries on the front, a large bottle of kiwi juice, potatoes, onion, sausage, and my new favorite: Bimbo chocolate filled croissant:

No, I'm not sure why the company's name is called Bimbo. Yes, it doesn't matter because it's delicious.

Oh and while we were there, an old man very happily tried to talk to us. Had no idea at all what he said but he seemed quite content to talk. We were at least able to introduce ourselves in Mandarin, though how well we did that, I'm not sure....

Dave was highly tempted to get the barbecued chicken feet we saw there as well, but by the time we had all our stuff we just wanted to go home. Once there, our fellow housemate discovered google's translation services and kindly asked us through her computer if we wanted help cooking. She helped us get the stove on and showed us where the salt and spices were, but other than that, Dave was mainly doing the cooking since he was making his family's standby of fried potatoes, onions, and sausage (although probably made for this first time in a wok). I saw the confused look on our housemate's face and am wondering if now she thinks that all American men do the cooking in the relationship. :/ Well, at least I did the dishes!

So now I am thinking I need to look up recipes for Chinese cooking. I know I'll want American food around the house too, but there's no way I'm going to live here for a year without expanding my tastes. I at least need to learn how to make sweet pork buns and sizzling rice soup!