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And now, after a ridiculously long absence from the blog, we proudly present the newest member of our family:
Calvin Fritz Brost was born on Tuesday, February 24 at 1:04 pm, weighing 7 pounds, 6 ounces, and measuring 20 1/4 inches. Much more to come…
Okay, so since I’ve been tagged by Marissa to tell the world seven interesting things about myself, here is the list, in no particular order:
And, to further spread the fun, I’ll tag Kim and Brandy. You’re it! Let’s hear 7 interesting things about you.
We visited the doctor this week and were thrilled to find out that we will be having a boy. Calvin Fritz Brost is due on February 24th. Now we just need to get his room ready and register him as a member of the Democratic party.
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No starfish on a stick at this night market. But we are starting to get the impression that we’re living in Blade Runner.
New shirt: Eat Tattoo, Dead Tiger
These people don’t seem to understand the implications of the Playboy brand. Playboy shirts are very popular, especially with middle-aged women. Every major shopping area has at least one store selling Playboy shirts, typically alongside Converse and other athletic brands.
Disneyland is really cute, but tiny. It feels like what we imagine Disneyland in Anaheim would have been like in about 1960. The castle is about ¾ the size of any of the other castles. The longest line was for Autopia, but even that was only 15 minutes. The whole park has 1/3 the rides, and they are not necessarily the biggest and most popular attractions. The big excitement right now is a super-exciting new ride that everyone has been anxiously awaiting: It’s a Small World.
So, it’s the day of the opening ceremonies, and we’re wandering around Beijing, wondering how we will find the Barrs. No one has access to phones or email, and we don’t know if it would work to send a message via Mark. As we are wandering around Major Tourist Site #4 on the list, we hear “Hey, Kelly.” As luck would have it, in this big huge city, the Barrs are walking out of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests just as we are walking in. Problem solved.
Had Yili-brand yogurt for dinner. It was probably fortified with melamine. Yummy.
Three security entrances are not nearly enough for the whole Olympic Park.
As for the park, it’s enormous. Again, think of what you’d expect, and multiply by Texas. Just to give a little sense of the size, we made the mistake of trying to run to the post office (on the far north end) before heading down to the Water Cube to watch Mark’s finals (on the far south end). It took us 35 minutes, one-way. Walking fast.
Okay, for those less familiar, here’s a quick summary of how the Paralympics work: The first official Paralympic Games was played in 1960, although it was established on a more informal basis in the late 40s, as a way for British war veterans to compete in athletics. It has only been for the past few Olympics that the Paralympics have been officially paired with Olympic games, which has given the Paralympians the ability to use the same facilities, and increasing visibility of the games.
The events are similar to, but slightly more limited than what you would see at the Olympics. The summer events are archery, boccia, cycling, equestrian events, football (5-a-side for blind athletes, and 7-a-side for those with cerebral palsy), goalball, judo, powerlifting, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, track and field events, sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby (a.k.a. murderball), and wheelchair tennis. For each event, athletes must have the specified disability. The majority of events are for wheelchair-bound or limited mobility athletes, but there are a number of events for vision-impaired athletes as well.
For swimming, athletes are divided into 13 categories, depending on their disability. This makes swimming one of the most comprehensive events – some swimmers are visually impaired, some have partial paralysis, and some are missing limbs. Our favorite swimmer, Mark, is classified as an S9, which puts him at the more able end of the spectrum (and also puts him in one of the most competitive classes).
Today, Mark swims the 100m butterfly and qualifies for the finals. Hooray! He doesn’t medal, but he swims a strong race.
Paul, Cameron and Kelly have started a fierce competition for TV time. And, they’re hoping to impress Miss Cyprus. Paul easily wins Day 1, and Cameron wins Day 2, thanks to his extremely photogenic “USA” shirt. But, we find out that the two of us were on TV during the Opening Ceremonies. Bonus points for that one. Later, we discover that everyone in Beijing is watching the full coverage of the Water Cube every night – the exact same thing we’re seeing on the TV inside the facilities. Now the stakes are even higher. Kelly has to return to the hotel to get more patriotic gear.
Final count: Lots of TV time for everyone. We’re now celebrities on CCTV5. And, as is the case for celebrities everywhere, people want to have their picture taken with us. As soon as the events are over and we meet in the Water Cube lobby to discuss lunch plans, a line starts to form. 20 minutes later, we finally are able to leave the last few disappointed fans and head off for food.
When we were deciding which part of the Wall to go to, we opted to skip the closest and most tourist-friendly locations, and to head for the more isolated and original parts. So, in weighing the importance of sleep and the value of getting to see a China that is three hours north of Beijing, we decided to get up at the crazy hour of 4:45 one rainy morning and head to Jinshanling for the 10k hike to Simatai. In some respects, we chose correctly – the only other tourists were the other two dozen people from our bus, and we only saw them for about the first 15 minutes. What we hadn’t counted on was the plethora of local “guides” who followed us around, trying to be helpful, and later trying to sell us books with the pictures we had just been taking ourselves. Finally, about 45 minutes later, we paid our “guide” $3 just to get rid of her. That was 20 yuan well spent.
At the end of the walk, we had an option of taking a 30-minute hike down the last stretch, or taking a 90-second zipline. The pregnant one of the group thought the zipline sounded great, but the other one thought it looked “way too scary.” The pregnant girl won. The zipline was awesome.
We got to talk to Mark all morning, since he didn’t have any swimming until finals. What an incredible adventure he is having.
Looking for an adventure, Kelly tries “floss bread.” It is not highly recommended. The “bread” is fine, but the “floss” is something along the lines of finely shredded beef jerky.
In an effort to be more brave, Kelly eats duck brain. Ewww…. Disgusting.
Mark’s last event, and he didn’t quite make it to the finals. He placed 9th by a measly 15/100 of a second. If only he had been able to see the guy six lanes over…
But, in every race, he swam really well. Apparently, in his class, only one person with a missing leg won a medal – and it was a bronze. It sounds like the classifications might be a little bit off if only one person with a similar disability is able to medal over the course of nearly a dozen events.
We’re noticing that the most popular Tshirts are the ones with a big block of English words. Not an English phrase – Just a bunch of seemingly random words strung together in no particular order. For instance, we saw one with a picture of a skull with the words “I like you” written below it. Inside the skull was a circle with the words “ice cream.” Also, pink is a very popular color. But only for the men (women are more likely to wear yellow).
Tonight we hit the infamous night market featuring gross creatures on sticks. (I think everyone saw this on the Travel Channel.) Alas, we had just eaten dinner, and weren’t too hungry. We had every intention of going back some night for starfish on a stick, but then we found Houhai and Nanluogu Xiang, and let ourselves get carried away with truly good food.
Tiananmen Square is big. Really big. Everything in Beijing is big. Take the size you would expect it to be, and multiply by a factor of Texas.
“Hallo? Rickshaw?”
It’s always nice to feel like you have a neighborhood. We now have a routine of heading to Houhai every morning for americanos and whole grain carrot muffins at Starbucks. (Yes, the barista here now knows our order – these are smart people.) And for dinner, we have discovered that our formerly dark and creepy hutong is half a block from Naluogu Xiang, a.k.a. the Disney Hutong. Fine with us. Over the course of our stay in Beijing, we have some delicious tapas, Indian, French toast, pizza…
Where’s the breast? It seems like Chinese chefs are primarily skilled at using all the wrong parts of the chicken. Ordering “chicken” at a restaurant will get you a big bowl of feet and eyebrows (or, more likely, a huge bowl of chilis with a couple feet and eyebrows tossed in for flavor). So far, the only place we have found actual chicken meat is at KFC. At least we hope that’s what it is.
For dinner, we decided to try out a restaurant featuring traditional Imperial delicacies of things like deer lip soup with fried frog’s ovary or sea cucumber with deer tendon. (Note: I don’t think this was in any way representative of how ordinary Chinese eat. This was strictly for tourists. The Chinese were all at McDonald’s.) In the end, neither of us was brave enough, and we went to Houhai for some tasty hotpot.
Aside from Fangshan, food is much better in Beijing, but they could definitely use a Panda Express or Pei Wei.
Later tonight, Kelly decides to stir up some trouble by asking our bartender at the 12SQM Bar (yes, that’s its size) about China’s current views on homosexuality. After trying to make the bartender feel slightly less uncomfortable about the questions, she finally opened up a little. And, as it turns out, she had a pretty moderate view on the whole topic of her gay and lala friends. About what you might expect someone from the heartland to say. She does think it goes against the natural order of things, but is willing to let people make their own choices. She’s probably at a reeducation camp somewhere by now.
Basketball is ridiculously popular over here. Whenever we tell people we’re from the US, they respond with “oh, you must play basketball.” Smile. “Kobe Bryant.” “Gotta love this game.” “Impossible is nothing.” If we say we’re from Seattle, “Ahh… Ray Allen.” Except now he’s in Boston.
The barista at Starbucks already knows our order! We could get used to this place.
Later in the afternoon, in an amazing display of bravery, Tiffany is forced to be the first to sample all the snacks at tea. No problem. The quail eggs? Oddly, the size does not affect the flavor. They taste like eggs. Small gummy gelatin ball? Delicious. It was a kind of gummy candy with a fruit filling. Something small and round? A nut. Strange slices of something from perhaps the plastic family? Pressed bean curd. A lot like tofu, but a little saltier. Yummy.
After tea, Kelly gets burned by being the first to sample a tasty-looking candy in a cute orange wrapper – fish-flavored. Mmmm…
Today, we finally figure out how to cross the street. Hooray!
I felt badly for our poor little rickshaw driver. We should have gone for a ride before eating that big lunch. He had to work awfully hard for those $3.
First it was Facebook, now this…
We figured that a few people might want to follow along with our adventures in China, so be on the lookout for more posts beginning next Thursday or so.
