“B is for Big”

Arrival in Beijing

Jie arrived in Beijing, China on Thursday September 27 after spending a week in Busan, Korea. After landing in the Beijing airport and going through customs, as a Chinese citizen because China issued Jie a travel document, Jie and her boss caught a taxi to Beijing. Since it was around 5 pm Beijing time, Jie hit traffic all the way to the financial district where Mei lived. However, the taxi driver was very calm and resourceful and found Mei’s apartment in record time. Mei warned Jie that where she lived was nothing like the rest of Bejing and she was right. There were less people, lots of restaurants and coffee shots, and generally a place with very nice atmosphere. Mei’s apartment was somewhat like a hotel where she gets maid service twice a week and can ask the lobby to provide things like extra towels and blankets. What a life! 

First Weekend

That night, Mei took Jie to a really good restaurant around her house. We had wholesome veggie, rice, and some meat. It’s good to be back in Asia. Jie can’t find good Chinese food anywhere in downtown DC! Although Jie had jet lag, Mei asked if Jie wanted to go get a food massage. “Of course!”, Jie thought! The foot massage place was well organized with ladies with headsets and computer screens showing the availability of the massagers. Pretty soon Jie and Mei were ushered into a room with two sofas and a TV. Twenty minutes later two male foot massagers came in to wash our feet and proceed with the massage. Since you never know with Chinese massages, the massage turned out to be a full body massage but it was still really good. Jie fell asleep half way through and the foot massager thought it was hilarious. It was nice to have the TV on. Mei and Jie watched interesting Chinese talk shows and interesting Chinese music videos!

On Friday, Jie took the metro to her boss’s hotel. Metros are an experience in itself since there are always so many people and so many armpits. Also, you have to be very pushy when getting off the metro. However, it is very cheap only $0.40! After getting to the hotel and holding a meeting, Jie and her boss decided to go to the Forbidden City. As everything is in Beijing, the FC was huge with multiple buildings with courts for the emperor, the empress and their attendees. By the time Jie and her boss was finished, it was around 5 pm and they couldn’t find one taxi. After a frustrating 30 minutes, Jie and her boss hopped on a bus and then took the metro. Jie and her boss finally made it back to the hotel two hours later and her boss was ready to drop! Jie met up with Mei later that night to eat Peking duck at Made in China. Mei and Jei went to get drinks at one of the tallest buildings in China. After that. Jie was ready to drop. What a great and tiring day! 

The next Saturday, Mei thought it would be fun visit the 728 art district at Dasanzhi metro stop. Jie and Mei took the metro and then the bus. Various art pieces were housed in a renovated 50 year old decommissioned military factory building. 728 is often compared to New York's Greenwich Village or SoHo. The district had a lot of symbolic art, great atmosphere, and lots of coffee shops. It is a place of serenity away from Beijing. Jie has to admit that it was rather shocking at the amount of symbolism about China in the art. Mei went on a hunt for good post cards. After taking lots of great photos and eating at a coffee shop, Jie and Mei decided to go back to Dasanzhi train station to find a movie theater. Although there were a lot of malls near the station including the Raffle’s mall, there was neither bookstores nor movie theaters. It’s times like this when Jie and Mei realize that China is still a developing country. There are a lot of grand buildings but the buildings do not factor in user experience. After walking around like ants in a huge concrete jungle, Jie and Mei thought it would be best to return to Mei’s apartment and then head out to dinner.

At night, Mei met up with her business school friend at a restaurant with traditional Yunan food. The restaurant was in an alley way and in a houtong otherwise known as a rich family compound. Mei managed to find a taxi which was a miracle. The restaurant door was very shabby but it was well decorated inside. There was lot of foreigners because the restaurant was featured on trip advisor. Mei and Jie ate plates and plats of veggies, meat, and fish. It was all very spicy. It was fun catching up with Mei’s friend. 

On Sunday, after a great brunch near Mei’s apartment, Jie, departed to the Beijing West Train Station to catch an afternoon high speed train to Zhengzhou, Henan for the Yellow River Forum. The Beijing West Station gets a lot of flak for being hard to navigate and costing a record of ¾ of a billion dollars. Jie and her boss managed to get on the train with no problems. It was a smooth ride and each person had a spacious seat. The ticket only cost $40 for a 5.5 hour train ride. 

As part of the train experience, there was a “train attendant” that was in charge of the section of our train. There were also carts with food and snacks. About an hour away from Zhengzhou, Jie started noticing the bad air. At first, Jie thought it was going to get better but it didn’t even after she arrived in Zhengzhou. The air was three times as bad as Beijing and Jie could smell the chemicals in the air. The air was so bad at times, it made Jie’s eyes water. What was amazing was that after four days in Zhengzhou, Jie had completely gotten used to the bad air. Imagine how bad it was for the people in the City! After getting off the high speed train, Jie and her boss realized that they needed to keep their ticket in order exit the train station. Unfortunately, Jie’s boss had thrown her ticket away and the station police wouldn’t let her exit without buying a new one. Luckily, the drivers who were waiting for Jie and her boss intervened. Jie is unsure what happened at the end, but the station police let her and her boss leave the train station.

The Yellow River Forum was quite an experience by itself. All the important government officials were there. Jie will have to write a second blog entry on the forum but will stick with the fun times she had with Mei. 

Second Weekend

After four days in Zhengzhou, Jie took the high speed train back to Beijing. This time, there were more people and less seats. Jie and her colleagues sat in a three seater facing three other people. 5.5 hours later Jie arrived in Beijing West Station. Luckily her colleagues had ordered a car for everyone, because it was impossible to find a taxi. 

On the last Saturday, Mei ordered a car to the part of the Great Wall called Mutianyu. It is one of the more scenic parts of the Great Wall. After an hour and a half, Mei, Jie, and her boss arrived in Mutianyu where they took the cable car up to the Great Wall. Jie and Mei were lucky. The day was lovely and they were able to see the rare Beijing blue sky. In addition, the temperature was perfect so they had a clear view of the great wall and mountains. There were a lot of shops selling Chinese chopsticks, clothing, and other souvenirs. After riding the cable car to the top, Jie and Mei decided to climb a portion of the great wall which was steep. Since the wall was steeper than it looked, Jie was suddenly frightened because of the height but took Mei’s hand and climbed up the wall. It was tough but well worth it. Mei decided that climbing the wall two times was enough since she had recently been to the great wall with Mom! 

After eating a satisfying lunch of steamed dumplings, Mei, Jie, and her boss stopped by the Beijing Olympic stadium, took some pictures and then headed to the airport. 

Thanks Mei for being an amazing host. See you in December 2012!

A Few Thoughts from Jie and Mei

The only word to describe Beijing is “BIG”:

• China is a big and exciting. As Mei pointed out, their economic growth is not so much due to their but by the sheer number of people. The purchasing power is immense.

• Jie sees a real struggle between China’s economic growth and natural resource management. Something has to give sooner rather than later.   

• Perhaps due to path laid out by Chinese ancestors, the Chinese like to build things that are big and grand. On the surface, it doesn't appear that the Chinese puts as much thought into the purpose of the building and whether it would be useful for people. Jie and Mei found this particularly true when they were wondering the huge malls in search of non-existence coffee shops, bookstores, or movie theaters. They felt the user experience lacking.

• Jie and Mei were impressed with how many people they met who were progressive thinkers. One Peking University professor talked about coming up with ideas and running with it. Very much a western mentality. One of Jie’s colleague said that her husband takes care of their house and does all the cooking just so she can concentrate on her work and her career. Unheard of in other Asian countries.

• Due to the sheer number of people, there’s a lot of diversity and therefore people are less narrow minded and judgmental.

• All in all, China has a lot of work ahead of them in terms of solving their pollution problems, improving their customer service, solving their population problem, and understanding that people’s thoughts and actions cannot be controlled. However, it is changing quickly, and on the surface, for the better. The top down governance, although problematic at times, does force  decisions to be made quickly. And as long as they are the right decisions this is a good thing. Also the western influence, in the form of multinational companies and foreigners are changing the way people act towards each other. Jie heard more sorry’ s this time than a year ago when she didn’t hear hardly any.  There is hope for the future!

A Twosome Place (Also Known as the Face Shop)

Busan, Korea! After joining Jie for a weekend, we decided that it comes down to these highlights (aka perfect city for girls and ideal setting for a Korean Drama or dates). Here is what stood out:

• Adorable cafes on every block that make you want to sit there the whole afternoon and  hang out with your date or best friend while sipping coffee and eating cake
• An obsession with white skin - as a result, there is an abnormally large number of skincare product shops, and girls have white faces that are several shades lighter than their necks (this was somewhat of a shock in the beginning),
• Catchy kpop songs playing everywhere that make you want to dance around
• Abundance of bakeries and dessert shops (Paris Baguette! Ops! Tous les Jours!)
• Trend of feminine looking guys in skincare advertisements
• A love for hot dogs of all kinds
• Sensational spas
• Enterprising sales people who try to sell raincoats on the subway (this turned out to be quite necessary as Jie found out during the typhoon that came after Mei left

Details and play by play of the weekend!

Jie and Mei were reunited on the other side of the pond in September! As luck would have it, Mei relocated to Beijing in August for a few months, and Jie had a conference in Busan, Korea so it was decided that we would make a weekend adventure out of it.

Jie met Mei at Busan's Gimhae airport Friday night and we had no trouble finding each other. Mei loved breezing through immigration without a visa and getting away from the massive crowds that she's gotten used to be around at all times in big, bad Beijing.

We didn't want to take any chances this late at night, so we took a cab to the hotel. Of course, language was a problem, but our hotel was in a central enough location for both parties to figure out what each other meant. Our hotel was indeed centrally located, right next to the Busan Station. It was also really neat, clean and compact with helpful tips in the room, such as placing big pieces of luggage under your bed. We decided that a benefit of having small people living in a country is most definitely the energy and space savings!

Nice tip for us

Mei in front of the door. Perfectly size for little people like us!

The first line of order was getting some food! Jie had just arrived from a 14 hour flight, so she was famished. Not to worry, the best part about Asia is that there is food everywhere! We were pleasantly welcomed by the sight of 24-hour convenience stores lighting up the streets in Busan as well. Although it was drizzling outside, we dashed over to the convenience store next to our hotel.

The selection was similar to what you'd find at a 7-11 in Taiwan.. as in, there was EVERYTHING! We spent a good 15 minutes just peering at the cute beverages, snacks and ready-made food. How can you resist drinking chocolate milk when there is Doraemon on the packaging??

Jie found the instant noodle shelf and decided to be like one of the locals. There was a hot water machine and a counter facing the glass window for people to slurp their noodles and gaze outside, just like in a Korean drama! (well, kind of). There was also a microwave where Jie was extremely amused when she saw others heat up their instant coffee packages. We've seen boxed wine at Target, but never packaged heatable coffee. Maybe that's the next new fad!

Mei even found boxed blueberry cheesecake in the refrigerated section. I tell you, there was everything in that 10ft x 10ft space.

The next day was drizzling, but we headed out anyways after a breakfast of rice, kimchee and hot dogs (they do love hot dogs here in Asia) for a city tour of Busan!

We got off at Shinsigae Centum City, the largest department store in the world and after wandering around the high-end stores for a bit, decided to head over to Spa Land and get a true Korean spa experience.

Jie in front of Shinsigae Centum City

Mei in front of the entrance to Spa Land

The spa was massive and had a great system going on where you are given a unique number which sends you to a specific locker which can only open if it is the number you're assigned to. The key to the locker gives you access to the spa and also serves as a charge card if you purchase anything inside. This meant we didn't have to bring any cash with us! After storing our clothes and changing into the spa outfits they gave us, we headed out to the outdoor foot spa where there was a large heated pool set up for people to dip their feet in and seats all around so you can have a conversation while getting your feet soaked. Other areas included a separate bathing section for men and women, and co-ed sauna rooms, each with different themes and temperatures. Jie and I had a relaxing time hopping from sauna to sauna and sweating out our toxins. Definitely a nice thing to do on a rainy day!

Jie and I at the foot spa

Inside of Spaland where you could just relax and lounge around

Themed sauna

After spa-ing, we decided to go downstairs and check out the foodcourt. There was an elaborate order system set up to buy tickets for food at a ticket counter, and each customer was given a digital machine which would show when your order was ready. High tech!

Cute buns in the food hall

Successfully ordered food!

In the afternoon, Jie and Mei embarked on some skincare shopping. This was the highlight:

Yes, you better believe it

For dinner, we swung by Jagalchi market and headed to the street across from it where we had heard would be an area with good streetfood. But first a visit to the famous market:

Great views of the ocean! Unfortunately it was raining

After walking around, we finally found an alley lined with cute Korean shops and filled with a couple of food stands selling pretty much the same thing. This made it easy, so we picked what seemed to be a popular stall and ordered the leek pancake and panfried dumplings. It might have been because of our hunger or the rain, but this was the most delicious meal of the trip!

We followed up with a waffle dessert at a coffeeshop so Jie wouldn't fall asleep from jetlag:

We stopped by the convenience store again and realized Koreans really do have a fascination with hot dogs

The next day, we headed to another coffeeshop since it was raining (again!!). This one looked like it was directly out of a Korean drama. It even had a fitting title - a Twosome Place! We had a hard time figuring out whether 'twosome' referred to 'two people' or the fact that you can get a 'cake + sandwich' there.

Lots of love from Jie and Mei in Busan! Another wonderful sister trip completed. Next up, Beijing!

The Avengers

Our adventure started at 8 am on a muggy New York Saturday morning. Mei was pretty groggy after having too much fun at a 90’s dance party the night before and only got three measly hours of sleep. Jie  had been wanting to white water raft for a while and was on her “bucket list” so was pretty excited. Jie and Mei bought a Google coupon a couple of weeks ago for “Whitewater Rafting Trip on the Lehigh River Gorge. At 8 am, we met our guides from Outdoor Connections (zozi.me/OutdoorConnectionsNYV) on the steps of the New York post office building along with 30 other fellow New Yorkers. Thereafter, we piled into three black jeeps, we drove 2 hours to Pennsylvania where the river adventure started.  

When we reached base camp, we were greeted with throngs of people, yellow school buses, and wooden buildings for showers and bathrooms. The scene reminded Jie and Mei of American summer camp – or what we envisioned summer camp to be from books and movies.

Lehigh River Gorge is a river that starts in Pennsylvania and ends in Delaware Bay. Our journey was 13 miles and five hours long. We paddled through Class II and III rapids (there are six classes total).

We waited patiently at base camp and got our lunch of sandwiches, chips, and cookies. Our guides split us into groups of 5-7 and gave us each a red rubber raft with “White Water Challengers” stenciled on the side. We were with three other girls Ray, Yiulia, and Regina. None of us had ever white water rafted except for Ray, two years ago. Even though she said she forgot the entire experience, we made her captain of our little red rubber vessel. After some waiting and chatting, all five of us piled into our r boat armed with a bright yellow oar, life jacket, two lunch buckets, and one empty bucket. Off we went… 

We were told to follow several guides which looked like mermaids and mermen with their body hugging kayaks. We quickly figured that there was a lot of paddling and coordination. Gently gliding down the river was not going to cut it. There were too many big rocks to avoid. The river was pretty shallow even though it was dam release day because it hadn’t rained for months. Our captain sat at the back of the boat and gave us directions – right side row, left side row etc. It quickly became apparent that the right sides and the left sides had to paddle with the same rhythm or else we were never going to go straight. Although she tried her best, the captain was wrong half the time so we ignored most of her directions. 

 

We hit our first white water about 20 minutes in. For the first part of our journey we went through white water called “dragon lady” and “mile long”. Yiulia, like Jiulia but with a Y, talked about eating lunch for most of the trip. All was well until our raft hit a rock and sent one side of our boat flying. After the boat righted itself we checked whether everyone was okay. It was then when we noticed the captain had fallen out. She was on a rock downstream of the raft. After gaining our composure, we paddled towards her and pulled her back by her armpits.

And so we paddled and labored onwards. The view was gorgeous. The view reminded us of the rainforests of Malaysia. There were mountains of green trees against a picturesque blue sky. Too bad it was so wet and we couldn’t take many pictures. Mei smuggled her camera on board so we were able to get a few pictures. It was around this time when we decided that our group of five girls was a pretty great team and named ourselves the Avengers. We also decided that we all deserved a “scratch and sniff” sticker for our efforts.

In addition our boat, there were 12 other red rubber boats in our “group”. During some calm patches, some of the boats started splashing water at each other. We ended up in the line of fire so decided to fight back. After Yiulia threw a bucket of water on her by mistake, Jie decided to try and threw three buckets of water straight back at the boat next to us. It was very stress relieving and well worth it especially after one person on the boat yelled, “I got water got in my ear”!

About half way through, we found a calm bank where we had lunch. Jie and Mei wanted to take a nap but there were no such luxuries. It was around this time, when a big group green boats approached and passed us. They were not a friendly bunch. We had to wait for them to go through the rapids. While on one of our waiting episodes, Jie and Mei noticed that the boat next to us kept scooping water out. After about 20 buckets, Jie finally asked whether they had a hole. After some investigation, there was indeed a 4 inch gap. Our boat welcomed them to join us if they needed. Lo and behold, the Dad in the boat was  first to jump ship. He was actually in our boat and getting settled before his family called him back to the leaky boat.  

The second half of the journey was much more intense. We barely missed some big rocks and had to do some expert maneuvering. We lost our captain two more times and hauled her back. Near the end we saw a rock called “case of beer” rock. No explanation was given. At the very end, it started to thunder with lightening. Gusts of wind blew us everywhere. Luckily we were near the end. After we landed, we hauled our rubber boats up gravel covered banks and ran to the Yellow school buses waiting for us. The hour drive back to base camp was very cold. Mei was so tired that she slept most of the time. We kept dreaming about dry towels and warm clothes.

When we finally arrived to base camp with our buckets, we had to wait shivering for our driver/guide Jim who took a very long  time. When he finally arrived, he lead our group to our car parked ten minutes away and a through a forest path that looked suspiciously like a scene from the “Twilight”. We gritted our teeth and dealt with the cold.  When we finally grabbed our bags, we trudged back through the forest where we finally went into a shower room and where Jie and Mei finally pulled on dry underwear, clothes, and socks.. Dry clothes never felt so good.

After some sustenance of french fries, beef jerky, and sour candy. Jie and Mei headed back to the car to wait for Jim.. After another 30 minutes Jim finally showed up. We ended leaving the camp site around 7:15 pm and arrived back to NY around 10 pm. We thought about giving 20 buckaroos as tip but then decided not to given that we were poor young professionals. I’m sure just because of that we will run into Jim in the near future. It was a great experience and much more physically intensive then both JIe Mei expected. Another crazy adventure. Jie and Mei are going for a massage tomorrow. 

Signed, Jie

Hidden Gem Near DC

50 minutes away from downtown Washington, DC lies a charming seaside town, nicknamed the “Sailing Capital of the World”.  Although often overlooked as a vacation destination, we discovered that Annapolis was the perfect weekend getaway, with tons of historical sights to see, gorgeous views, excellent seafood, cute stores and plenty of outdoor activities – all a short drive away from the city.

We started out from DC on a gloriously sunny Saturday morning and headed straight to Cantler’s crab shack for an early lunch. Cantler’s is famous for their fresh crab and we sat by the water enjoying our meal. Jie had a fried softshell crab sandwich which had the entire crab (surprisingly juicy) stuffed in a soft potato bun while Mei ordered the lump crab cakes that she had been looking forward to all week. The crab cake was the size of a baseball and was composed of nothing more than sweet, succulent lump crabmeat. It was the biggest and freshest crabcake Mei had eaten before.

 

After a satisfying meal, we headed to downtown Annapolis, where Jie landed a winning streetside parking spot across the bridge in Eastport near the RockFish grill restaurant. She learned of this location few days ago when she went on a sailing trip with her colleagues. With downtown Annapolis packed with cars, we agreed that finding this free parking spot was hidden gem #1.

We also thought of some cool names for boats, including: Raise the Roof and Egads. hehe!!

After stopping by the visitor’s office to pick up some information, we headed to the Naval academy where we conducted our own tour and visited the Jewish chapel, the magnificent dining hall and Bancroft hall, which houses the largest dorm in the world and the Memorial Hall, which reminded us of the palaces in Europe with its intricate marble designs and paintings. We still haven’t resolved why marines have to wear all white because it seems to be so much more expensive to do laundry. This was hidden gem #2

It was getting hot, so we stopped for some gigantic ice cream at the Annapolis Ice cream factory. Jie had the raspberry chocolate chip with big chunks of chocolate and Mei had the strawberry oreo flavored ice cream, which reminded her of a Mcflurry married to Haagen dazs strawberry ice cream. Heavenly!!

After walking around and exploring Main Street, including a pit stop at the Pink Crab (cute boutique) and the original Hobo store and having a laugh at a teapot shaped bag, we drove to the B&B Mei had found online called Meadows Garden B&B. We stayed in an adorable room called the French Country room (you can see why!) Definitely hidden gem #3.

There was also a pool on site and a creek down the road, so we spent some time attempting to paddle a paddleboard, but realized after paddling that we had been doing it backwards!

There was also a dog that liked to toss Mei his saliva-drenched ball. Mei was not amused, therefore no pictures were taken to remember this dog by.

Then we went back to Annapolis for our sunset sailing trip on the Woodwind, a schooner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schooner). It was a busy crowd - there was a bachelorette party going on (which was a bit obnoxious), a Mexican travel show being filmed with a garden gnome as the mascot that got carried around, and Mei also got to steer the boat! We were also provided with free beverages, snacks, cheese and crackers. Most of all, it was a beautiful view and we got to see the gorgeous sunset. Hidden gem #4.

After the cruise, we walked a few blocks down Main Street to have dinner at Piccolo Roma where we ordered crab ravioli and an amazing seafood fettuccine which had big chunks of scallops, shrimp and tons of crab meat mixed throughout a light, cream-based sauce.

We were too stuffed for dessert so headed home afterwards.

The next morning, we had breakfast in a beautiful patio streaming with sunlight. The owner of the B&B, Wendy Mays had taken our order the day before and made steaming hot breakfasts for us. I had the breakfast enchilada and Jie had the farm fresh frittata which was the best frittata we had eaten, with eggs from chickens right running around the garden.

After checking out of the inn, we went back to Annapolis, stopped by farmers market to get some peaches and then went into a spice and sugar market (hidden gem #2) and realized that you feel like you actually taste something just by the smell (i.e. inhaling the chile rubbed bbq and Jamaican jerk chicken spices actually made me feel like I was eating it). Also cool stuff like fruit infused sugars.

Our last stop was this place called the Clay Bakers where we got to paint our own pottery in a cute setting with awesome music. Jie made a sailboat plate and I made a crab plate. Hidden Gem #4!