Leaving Beijing

Leaving Town

It’s been a brief, but full 4 days in Beijing. It was SO good to be with Siri Dyal in his element. He and Carla were wonderful hosts. I felt very cared for and looked after. I enjoyed meeting and spending time with his friends. Most memorable at this point is the amazing Chinese eating experience. Each day we went to a dramatically different restaurant and had an amazing meal. It was more than good food that I had never had before. It was an eating experience. Eating with chop sticks, communally, with so much variety, really gets you involved in the meal. Last night we ate at a Hot Pot restaurant. It was in a part of town that in the 1980’s was the only place to find an open restaurant after 8:00PM. The streets are lined with large red lanterns. The mood is boisterous, energetic, loud. And then you get into the restaurant. Crowded, louder and aromas!!!! Each table has a burner in the middle. On the burner sits a pot of boiling spiced water. Some are divided in half, some in thirds. You order your spiced water (hot, curry, etc) then order what you want to cook in it. As we walked by the closely packed tables, we passed small pots of boiling crayfish, fish heads, crabs, 6 different kinds of tofu, a variant of greens, radishes, cilantro, lettuce, mushrooms, onions. Oh My God! Talk about stimulation!!!...

Our bowl was divided into three sections, one was hot, the other curry, the last rather mild. I had been hearing about the hot pot experience for several days. I was sure I would be let down after all the buildup. That was not the case. At one point, when biting into a cube of tofu that had been in the hot section, I felt like the cube exploded in my mouth, sending HEAT down my gullet and up into my sinuses and out my tear ducts. I swear that as the tears came out my eyes they burned my cheeks. And that was not the most intense experience. I was told that there were small peppers in the hot side that would make your mouth go numb if you ate one. Apparently, I got one by mistake. I am sure that the molecular structure of my taste buds have been permanently rearranged. Everything has tasted different since that moment, even the water. If this sounds attractive to you and you find your way to a Hot Pot restaurant, I have one more word of warning – “Don’t sit in the chair that is downwind from the steam rising off the pots." It is a psychedelic, transcendent experience.

Anyway, now I am sitting in the airport in Beijing, waiting for the flight to Bangkok. The foreign sounds around me are noticeably different. I am in the middle of a Thai girls soccer (football) team. I don’t know if they won or not, but they are all laughing now. They seem glad to be together and glad to be going home.