Wednesday, July 5 Hot Day in Beijing

[soid]

 Woke up around 7am – great, jet lag is almost defeated.

For breakfast, we drank Mongolian milk tea from bowls and ate pancakes. The tea was stone-like bricks placed in milk and brewed for a moment. I tried a sip of the milk tea – and no, milk is still not my thing. The pancakes were of two kinds: with sugar inside for kids, and savory. I preferred the kid's variation. It reminded me of Slavic syrnyki with cheese inside; when I mentioned it, I was told Mongolians do it with cheese too, but not cheese – some other strange diary that no one knows and, and I said yeah syrnyki is actually not with cheese but with the strange diary by-product. It's called tvorog. Seems like Mongolians eat the same thing.

I went for a walk in a local park along the river, bringing my summer reading with me – Dostoevsky's Бесы (Demons). Hot July in Beijing, 97ºF/36ºC, sunny and humid; last week Beijing's temperature was hitting 70 years high, but it was not too bad. The streets were mostly empty; some socialist-style buildings with the red flag, the hammer and sickle, etc; but mostly businesses, street food kind of unhealthy food choices, fruits, grocery stores, hair salons, but mostly what I couldn't identify what it was. I sat down on a bench in the park. A group of old people were playing some games; a young couple was hugging in the shadow. A bum-looking man in comical bibs was standing nearby, then sat down on the ground, pulled playing cards from his pocket, and started shuffling them; a lady on a bike stopped by and started telling him something, then looked at me, got shy, and biked away. I read two or four first pages of Dostoevsky; little I cared about the beginning of the story; the heat was melting my mind. The bum, the way people acted, everything looked like a part of some comical performance. 

"Газеты и журналы, выписываемые Варварой Петровной во множестве, он читал постоянно. Успехами русской литературы тоже постоянно интересовался, хотя и нисколько не теряя своего достоинства. Увлекся было когда-то изучением высшей современной политики наших внутренних и внешних дел, но вскоре, махнув рукой, оставил предприятие. Бывало и то: возьмет с собою в сад Токевиля, а в кармашке несет спрятанного Поль де Кока." The book was getting interesting, but my mind was melting. I walked back home.

For lunch, we ate Winter Melon soup. I've never eaten winter melon, but it tasted like butternut squash.

Then a subway ride to the center of Beijing where we spend two days staying in a hotel. Turns out, I as a foreigner cannot stay in any hotel here, but need to double-check if the hotel is allowed to host foreigners. A lot of places are ruled out because of this regulation; there are no hotels for foreigners on the outskirts of Beijing. It's the North Korean kind of old law where foreigners are closely watched, but not as strictly. There is also no Airbnb, and its local competitor is not allowed to work with foreigners. So, unless we stay with B's friends, we will be trapped in "modern" hotels for foreigners. Luckily, it won't happen that often.

In the evening we walked around Hutongs – a kind of low-density old buildings that they also call Old Beijing. It all looked like cool Asian slums with lots of street commerce, crowds of people, and chaotic motorcycle traffic. Then I got too sleepy and went to bed by midnight.

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

Sitting outside at 36ºC, that's heroic.

Did not you eat cottage cheese in the US? It's sold everywhere. (One can also easily make it oneself).

And thanks for all the information!

[soid]

It's actually not too bad in the shadow near water, but yeah, quite hot.
Yeah, I like cottage cheese even more than Russian style tvorog. I don't know how good are syrnykis with it. I should try one day – I like that kind of crazy fusion food.