Sampling of MF Visit

Brother and sister at the apartment building

The Forbidden City

Mom and son at Forbidden City

Porcelain Gallery

Suiting up for the future.

The Bell and Drum Towers.

The Great Wall - Mutianyu

Alma Mater

Loyola in Beijing.

Special Visitor with 450 Days in the Countdown

Our son arrived in Beijing on May 15th, which happens to coincide with 450 days on the official countdown clock. He is visiting us for the week before he heads home with BF for a family wedding in Milwaukee. He then begins a summer job with Chase which he is very excited about.

May Labor Day

The Chinese are celebrating a "golden week" for May Labor Day, as a result so are we. We have a whole week off and because AF only had three days off we stayed in Beijing while most of my co-workers left for Malaysia, US, or Taiwan. Traveling in China would be a nightmare with the crowds as we witnessed when we biked near the back of the Forbidden City (it was wall-to-wall buses and mobs of Chinese tourist).

We did spend half a day with a local guide (Tony Chen) that BF met through acquaintances. He had two apprentices with him (Katrina and Penny) as he is trying to build his business http://www.stretchaleg.com. BF and I decided to have him give us a hutong tour as something that kind of interested us to better understand the locals a little more. It was a very nice walking tour.

Below are some of the things that we saw along the way. Any one who wants to visit we know who to hook you up with to show you the town, Tony was great. So here are some of the sights that we saw with a little caption underneath on what you are seeing:
One of the many homes we visited.There is a lot of restoration happening in the hutongs and these courtyard homes. Above a craftsman is hewing a beam to be used in the restoration of a home (while he is using an ax, he did have cross cuts made with a chain saw). Racing Pigeons, now there is a profession............
The Source Courtyard Restaurant, we had heard of it. After looking at the menu we will definitely be back. An old hitching post and millstone.
Time for lunch, so Tony recommended this fusion restaurant (Luogu)
Believe it or not this is the entry way from the downstairs to the roof top for dining. Hi Penny.
Rooftop view from the restaurant.
Check out all the Chinese flags, it is Labor Day and a law that you must display your colors, how cool............
For JPM bikers, Tony used to work for REI here in China to do both road and mountain biking tours in China. Which made the conversation with him even more interesting for me. Then we ran into the local police station standard issued bike........nice blue and white

Beijing Pub Crawl

Now here is a real Expat sport for you . . . . . . . a pub crawl on a Chinese bicycle in Beijing. We have some good friends from the apartment building who were willing to partake in this sport (BF and I tried it a couple of weeks ago).
We started at Morel's our favorite Belgian bistro that serves an awesome Flemish beef stew (refer to Creatures of Habit blog entry http://jpmcchina.blogspot.com/2007/02/creatures-of-habit.html ). BF had her usual Belgian beer.............too sweet for me so I stick with the local draft Beijing beer which costs us less than $.50 for 630ml home delivery (which is 21.4 oz for the Americans). There actually is some city street biking involved which has a skill all of its own and the ladies seem to be the most aggressive and experienced at it (TF and Rob bringing up the rear). Pub # 2 was the Goose and Duck which is a favorite western Expat bar.
At the G&D we played a game of 501 which Rob our South African friend introduced us to. We played pretty even (horrible). Pub # 3 is Dirty Nellies Irish Pub. For some reason we never find this cool pub in the basement all that active. We did find in our first pub crawl (only BF and me) a pretty cool New Zealander who was visiting from Japan. We struck up a good conversation about skiing in Japan (we will see if we get together again for skiing in Japan next year).

Here is the sights from the Irish Ratskeller (I know that is a German term but not sure what the term is for a below street level tavern is). Since we did an above ground outside German beer garden next, I think I will use the term anyway.

Pub # 4 is Pauliner which is at the Kepinski Hotel. This is by far the most expensive brew house that we visit. Can't go back here at $32 a round for weis beer. Nice outside beer garden but not worth the hotel prices versus the other venues.

Stopping for Pub # 5 Schillers German Brew Haus.

I have Beijing's favorite and the ladies are having German pils.
The last pub which is another German haunt, Shindler's. It is time for some real meat and dinner.