Blood pipe and Hutongs

Last night as I said was the engagement party. It was fun to dress up although I didn't really know anyone. I decided to be adventurous and had Alex do my eye makeup. I never really wear eye makeup other than mascara, so it was interesting but I think it worked out pretty cool. We went to this girl, Julie's apartment (Julie and I have the same birthday, which automatically makes her cool), for the party. It was fun, not much to say though.

This morning I woke up earlier than I wanted to, to the sound of the door bell. It was weird because I woke up and did not even realize what it was since I was not quite awake yet. I just kept hearing this annoying sound. Apparently the maid (not sure if I mentioned that we have a maid that costs less than $2 an hour, how sad) came over two hours earlier than she was supposed to and was incessantly ringing the doorbell. After that stopped, I fell asleep again and then heard the doorbell go off a million times again. Then I heard a bunch of Chinese men talking really loudly and running up and down the stairs. I have no clue what was going on as I was barely conscious but I jsut made sure to stay in my room. It was very surreal. I hate the sound of our doorbell now.

Other than that rude awakening, today was pretty awesome. Alex was very busy with work, but I went on a photoshoot to some hutongs with MCK (Alex's American friend), and three of his Chinese friends, AJ, Kurt and Nicole. First we met for lunch, a lunch I will never forget. The Chinese guys wanted to go to McDonald's but MCK and I would not have it. So we went to this Chinese restaurant and since the menu was entirely in Chinese I did not bother to look for anything. Most people eat family style in China, and I was not especially hungry, so I just let them pick whatever they wanted. Not sure how good of an idea that was. The first dish to come out was weird looking and I knew it had to be some animal part, turns out it was lamb stomach. So being the little trooper, and that fact that I will eat "anything" once, I tried it. The worst part was the sauce it was in, I think on it's own it would probably be somewhat tasteless. The texture was sort of like calamari. Then came out something like Kung Pao Chicken, which honestly I have not seen yet in China, but AJ and Kurt said that that is the dish that is most associated with foreigners. Go figure . . . I actually liked that one. Some other plates came out, all of which were good and then on top of it all was this hot pot that consisted of varioud animal parts. I still don't know what all was in there but the soup part looked like blood (don't worry, it wasn't). Of all the parts that were in there, I managed to eat "blood pipe", duck blood, cow stomach (not much different from lamb stomach), possibly part of an eye of some animal, and some other organ like parts. I am not quite sure what "blood pipe" is, I would guess maybe one of the major arteries or veins? It was pretty thick. Anyway, it was not as bad as it all sounds. Not something I would ever order or choose to eat again, but none of it made me feel like I had to throw up, which in my book is the most important thing. I think the sheeps brain I had in Egypt is still more disgusting than any of what I ate today.

After lunch we walked over to where there used to be hutongs. I am not sure how recently, but most of it was rubble. We all took our cameras out and spent a couple hours wandering around and taking photos. I didn't take as many as I wanted to because it was freezing, insanely windy and I forgot my gloves, so my hands were frozen. MCK was going around and tried to talk to a couple people. Some of them were not as willing to talk but this one guy was pretty cool. He apparently only moved to Beijing three months ago so he could get a job, have a better life and see where the great leaders were from. It was really sad to see that he was living in the remnants of a demolished hutong. Luckily MCK talked to him or a while and even got him to let me take a photo of him.

Overall the day was pretty cool walking around and documenting this stuff. We are meeting on Tuesday to go over photos and who knows what will happen next. I know they are talking about doing exhibits, maybe books and who knows what else.

As for the burns I got yesterday, one of the eleven turned into a blister, argh! It seriously looks like I have some weird birthmarks on my arm right now in the shape of a bunch of red spots.

This evening we made pizza with some homemade dough that Carrie had frozen from her mother. We ordered ingredients from April Gourmet, which as usual is a very risky deal. I asked Alex to see if they had root beer and they ended up bring over a can of warm Carlsberg beer. Oy! Not what I wanted. That happend to us for the potato pancakes when we asked for oil and they brought margerine. I guess that's what we got for not wanting to walk to get our groceries last minute.

On top if it, I bought the first season of Lost on DVD here (super cheap) and am getting everyone into, mwa ha ha ha! I officially have Alex hooked.

I am super super tired so I am going to sleep, but I will put the photos up first thing tomorrow, I think I got some goods ones, unfortunately no evidence of the stomachs though, I am such a fool!