Orienting Ourselves: Shenyang and the Drive

While the Dragons were in Shenyang (see previous post) we ate at a number of remarkable places.

Chinese BBQ- The fondue of BBQ. You grill everything yourself at the table... Delicious!

When you eat at some restaurants in China you know the poultry is fresh.

The skewers of meat could have been deliciously spiced anything... there were dogs, rabbits and pigeons in cages out front. I am pretty sure the dogs were pets. The pigeons and rabbits were not.

I also got up early on Sunday, and explored the city a little bit. We were staying outside the city center, so I didn't get to see the "Little Forbidden City" - the imperial palace built in 1630's- but I did get to Beiling park to see the north tomb of the emperor Qing Zhao. The park was one of the biggest I have seen in China so far and really busy, with people doing tai chi, waltzing, stretching, running, flying kites, protesting, matchmaking, eating, and doing water calligraphy. I got a bit of the "OH my GOD I am in China and can't speak any Mandarin" feeling when I was hassled by one old man with a water calligraphy stick (huge brush made of foam with a tube full of water attached that is used to paint characters on the marble squares in many Chinese parks). Basically the man pressured me into trying to copy what he had written and because such huge crowd formed immediately and I wasn't able to escape by running like a pansy (my natural inclination) I awkwardly tried my best to copy him... never having used one of the flimsy, ungainly brushes (nor ever written a Chinese character) my attempt was not very successful. However I used my thirteen words of Chinese to their fullest and left with my pride only slightly injured.

My (sad) attempt to copy the calligraphy for `China`` is on the bottom.

Beling Park

Beiling Park

The tombs were really spectacular, and the original artwork and architecture was something else. I had the tombs basically to myself, because they aren't well known, and Chinese people are notorious cheapskates and usually won't shell out the 25-50 Yuan (less then ten dollars) to see anything that isn`t extremely beautiful or famous. It was bliss to have a quiet moment.