This morning Livvy, Justin and I visited the Temple of Heaven, which is a huge park in Beijing, where we met up with “Howard” a Tai Chi Master who looks nothing like a Howard, for a tai chi lesson. The grounds were filled with tens of thousands of older Chinese men and women, all participating in their favorite morning exercises which ranged from Kung Fu to Rhythmic Dance to Ballroom Dancing. I managed to snap a few photos of what Chloe would call “authentic guys” around the park as well as some Mao appreciators, see pics.
After learning just how challenging Tai Chi coordination is, well at least for me, we headed to the Pearl Market, as well as the Jade Market and followed the shopping up with lunch at a Manchurian restaurant where the kids entertained the traditionally dressed waitresses with some elevator tricks. We were served fried rice in a bucket which the kids seemed to find extremely novel but I managed to convince Justin that schlepping home a rice bucket wasn’t feasible. Justin was hankering for some Egg Custard Tarts but unlike at Dim Sum state side, these are rarely found in restaurants in mainland China. Our guide Ally told us the best tarts are actually at KFC, which gives you a good sense for just how these sweets rank in authentic Chinese culinary hierarchy, so to KFC we went. I must say the tarts were quite delicious to my Western taste and Justin had 2.
After dinner we played a competitive game of bowling, boys vs girls, and although David and Justin’s smack talking had the boys spotting Livvy and me a 100 points for the first two games; by game 3 the boys were begging us to lower handicap to 50. Seems we didn’t suck quite as much as they thought. We acquiesced and let them win the last game by 10 points. Girl power!
We hugged and kissed David and Justin good bye at bedtime, for they were heading to Tokyo at 6am while Livvy and I are going to Hong Kong. So I got my 9 year old roommate back, and true to form she snored like a little lumberjack all night long while hugging her stuffed moose. Tomorrow, Hong Kong…
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