And We're Back!!

In my last (real) last entry I spoke about Mystery Beijing, Part Uno. Friday was Part Deux. And it was even better than the first go round.

We were split into new groups, and I was in a group of 5: 4 guys and me. It's was pretty amazing, no lie. I'm not going to go into all of the details, but we had a total of 7 stops to go to, and we finished 6 of them. These stops were like: Go to Silk Street and bargin for a tie. Or, find the tree that one of the Emperors of China hung himself on in 1644. We won our division, and now get to go to an "amazing" dinner - which involves goat in a yurt and belly dancers and snake charmers. The guys are looking forward to it more than I am...

Mystery Beijing ended at the restaurant next to campus, which all the teachers raved about. I have no clue why – perhaps they don’t have any taste buds. The pictures (and reviews are the following:

We started off with a these stick rice balls, filled with pork. Eh. I’d give it a C. Kinda bland and too sticky for my liking. I know. It’s sticky rice. I don’t have to like it though. Next, we had a tofu which was fried on the outside, which rendered the inside really creamy – almost custard like. Some duck-sauce like condiment was on top. Again, eh. C+ The soup was next. Bu hao. The broth was weak, and the dumplings had an egg wrapper. I don’t eat egg. Ick. C-

Next was sausage w/ peanuts. Yes, sausage. I don’t know, call me weird, but I really liked it. ( No, Mumsy, you can not make this at home!!!)

Salad with soy dressing was also on the lazy susan – amusingly, we all really liked it. The dressing was soy based. We had chicken wings, lightly breaded, with hot peppers, which was good, but not unlike those which you could get Stateside.

The spring rolls and chicken w/ mushrooms tasted like puke out in the sun. Or, I mean, I think that’s what it would’ve tasted like. (Really, I don’t know what puke in the sun tastes like. Really.)

Next up was aubergine, which was harmless and then the last dish was the best: the dumpling platter. The consensus at my table was that they just should’ve given us more of those. The top row was meat w/ veggies, then shrimp dumplings, a sweet friend custard thing, and finally in the croissant wrapper one, red bean.

The meal was really nothing special, but I’ve been getting a lot of email requests for food, so I thought it’d be good for y’all to see I’m eating more than Pizza and sandwiches.

This morning Emily and I decided to go to Silk Street Market to test out our bargaining skills. SO FUN! I got some shoes (I did Mystery Beijing in my Birkenstock flip-flops and it looks like I was walking on a cheese grater. Drawn your own conclusions on how my feet feel…), a handbag (gift), a camera charger (I forgot mine at home?), and a belt. The belt was the biggest coup. The lady started somewhere outrageous, like 300 RnB for crappy leather (maybe) and a regular buckle. I was all like “Helll nooo.” (Said in Chinese, obviously). So I offered 20 kuai, which she promptly told me was not going to happen. Obviously, she has never met a member of the Jay family before. When I said 20, I meant 20 – no more. So, she kicked me out of her stall, and I went next door to help Emily bargain on shoes.

And this is where the fun began:

The lady followed me to the next stall and started heckling me with more prices. 100 kuai! 80 kuai! 60 kuai! All to which I responded, 20 kuai. I really didn’t care at this point, but was kinda of amused at the whole thing. The lady was not.

At this point, Emily was getting ready to purchase the shoes, so I prepared to leave the aisle in which the belt stall and the shoe stall where in. When the lady saw this, she once again started calling prices. 50 kuai! 40 kuai! 30 kuai! 25!

I held strong at 20. ANNNDDDDDD…..

The Olympic Gold in Bargaining goes to MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

So, I now am the proud owner of (another) black belt.

OK...now I have a tutoring session, but will continue later with what I did on Sunday.