Before I Ran Headlong Into the Firewall, I Loved Beijing

First of all, the subway made sense. Bless Beijing for having the Olympics, because it made our first trip on the metro – from Beijing Central to our stop on Line 2 – the easiest public transit trip yet. Basically, everything is clearly marked in Chinese and English. Also, a trip only costs thirty cents, and I don’t feel like I’m watching my pocketbook at every turn.

Aboveground, we (I’d been traveling with a girl I’d met in UB) dropped our bags at the hostel, showered the train trip off ourselves, and went exploring near our guesthouse.

The main street felt like paradise: food – cheap and good at every turn; stores and lights and people always moving; little alleyways (hutong) with fruit peddlers (the stacks and stacks of bright persimmons!) and crepe-makers.

“I think I love China,” I giggled.

“It’s like I had been waiting all this time in Russia and Mongolia for my trip to really start,” she said.

We went looking for food. Most cafeterias and restaurants have a little street vending window too, so we would go up and peer in at the fried dough balls and sesame cakes.

“I bet that has red bean paste in it!” I would exclaim happily.

We didn’t know what to do – eat the salty fried chicken on a skewer, or the boba tea, or the candied apples.

We bought the skewer of miniature apples glazed in a sugar coating, if only because the presentation – deep garnet fruit en miniature, shiny with syrup – was beautiful. The taste was good; it seemed a perfect solution for otherwise small and slightly bitter crabapples.

We jumped up and down more and giggled about how excited we were to be here.

We stopped at a cafeteria and I tried to use my limited Chinese to order soup and some fried things. Mostly we pointed. We had a doughy thing with what we think was pork inside (mmm), a sesame bun sandwich with shredded lamb, scallions and cilantro (not bad), and a soup that needed more flavor. Then we ate my favorite treats – the fried rice-dough balls with red bean paste inside.

The no-sugar diet went out the window at the first sight of the odd little apple skewers and remained outside in the cold for a few days.

And actually, it’s not that cold here, which was perhaps the first most exciting thing we realized. We both removed our jackets for the first time since St. Petersburg.