Spicy Peanuts 麻辣花生!

For a quick fast hit of Sichuan spice, these Mala Penuts 麻辣花生 are perfect! They go great with beer (recommend yanjing 燕京) or baijiu 白酒. Would never find a snack like this in quick-gimme-some-water-can't-handle-spicy-food-HK.


Carmina, snowboard buddy / short-story writer / podcaster extraordinare, introduced them to me on the ski slope (checkout her dark fiction here). I finally found a pack in my local market and they cost just 2.50RMB!

This brand is called 玉辉牌 but I'm sure many other companies make them.

Art or Tomato Abuse?

Another visit to 798 blah blah. This time went to a British art gallery opening.

Here's a cool display, the letters are all airport codes. Being ex-airline industry, I can recognize most of them. CTU = Chengdu; FOC = Fuzhou. Anyway here's a website I always used to use to decode.


The highlight of the gallery was this super-weird performance art involving tomatoes! Here the artist is facing the wall throwing tomatoes. Yes he stood there bouncing the red veggies off the wall while his partner was blending them into juice. Then he would pour the juice all over the head of Van Gogh!


Handstand time, note the video also stars tomatoes.


Pouring fresh tomato juice all over his pants...room smelled like V8 juice.


Tortured artist drenched in tomato juice then starts crawling around on the floor of the gallery! Is this art or tomato abuse?

Review: Made In China

My dear friends Kylee and Steph came up for the weekend to visit, so we all went to Made In China for dinner last Friday to sample their famous Peking Duck 北京烤鸭.

Made In China is a modern Chinese restaurant located in the Grand Hyatt. As such, the decor and ambiance is top notch. The restaurant itself is not very big at all. Coupled with the much-buzzed-about open kitchen, it gives the place a cozy, comforting feel.


Spices for duck.


Making dumplings.


Of course we had to order the duck. These birds are rosed in a large woodfire oven just behind the kitchen.


Great maple-brown glaze!


Steph waiting for her duck. In the meantime, the raspberry ice tea was very yummy.


We were quite disappointed with the duck. The taste was just ok and they only gave us 3 plates of mostly skin. The rest of the duck was quickly whisked away somewhere never to be seen again. Also there were only 3 condiments (sweat sauce, garlic, sugar). At 200+ RMB per duck, I expect a lot more (see rival restaurant Da Dong).


Also ordered their famous Beggar's Chicken. It is wrapped in clay and cooked. Got to break open the clay with a wooden hammer!


Meat was falling off the bone. Very tasty, complex flavor with a tinge of wine. I thought it was better than the over-hyped duck.


Bottom line: Not worth the 200 RMB per person. Can pay slightly less for more food and better duck at Da Dong. If you must come here, skip the duck and order their regular dishes. Drinks were very good.

Ok no more blogging at 4am, gnite!

Bike Hotel

Owners leave their bikes here so they won't get lonely while they explore the Forbidden City.

Everything tastes better with 腐乳

Pickled tofu 腐乳 (fu2ru3) aka Chinese cheese is awesome! It tastes great on bread, egg, rice, veggies, ham, etc. It's China's equivalent to ketchup; everything tastes better with 腐乳!

Here's the 腐乳 I ate with my toasted bread (gotta be toasted) today 王致和-香辣腐乳, can be found in any supermarket and keeps forever. I'll be trying out these 腐乳 recipes later.



If I ever build a fallout shelter, I'll be sure to put a box of 腐乳 on the shelf between the AA batteries and Ritz crackers.

Snowboarding season's ending

Went to Nanshan on Friday on my own, legs are still wrecked.

Weekdays @ Nanshan are great! No people, no lines, less than 10 people on the park. Oh and the all day lift ticket was super duper CHEAP! only 22 RMB! They now have a 90% off deal since the season is almost over!!

I can't believe I spent a whole day snowboarding for less than 100 RMB including bus, ticket, food. Good times :)

Last official day for Nanshan this season is March 10th....gotta find another hobby...sigh

Spring visit to 798

This Sunday, paid a visit to one of my favorite places in Beijing - 798 art district - after a long hiatus (too cold in winter to walk around there). If you don't know what's 798, you can read my previous posts.

Unfortunately, many large galleries were empty, I think because not many people went in the winter. Here are some highlights of what I saw:

Incredibly life-like animal/person/aliens lounging around in their space pods, awesome!

Artist name is Unmask, find out more about the gallery & artists here.

Yum, I love cabbage

Main reason for visiting this time, is the opening of a friend's shop on 798 street west 西街.

Caicai's shop is called Gezidian 格子店 and she sells small locally hand-made nick-knacks great for souvenir or gifts. Please visit her shop if you get the chance!

Here's another cool sculpture exhibition, theme is about the 5 elements: wind, water, fire, wood, earth. But I'm not sure which element this one is :P

This one is wind, very cool

Fire, the pile of black stuff is all charcoal.

Another circle of elements

Be sure to haul your ass 798 if you come to Beijing!

Satellite View of Forbidden City

Here is a great satellite view of the Forbidden City. Home to former emperors, it is at the very heart of Beijing. It is the world's largest surviving palace complex. There are 980 surviving buildings covering an area of 72 hectares. What an amazing architectural achievement.

I visited back in autumn and walked and walked until my heels ached. This place is HUGE. I'll have to go back later and take some cool photos.

Don't have time to come see the city yourself? Checkout the next best thing: virtual Forbidden City by IBM.