On Friday night the
five of us ex-pats went out for dinner at a place called The Slow Boat, an
American owned and operated craft brewery. From the outside, it looked to be a
total dive, but when I opened the door, the beer gods shined down upon me, gave
me wings, and I floated onto a bar stool. The place sat about 30 people, served
five different food items, two side items, and there were about 20 beers on
rotation. It was the first time I actually felt somewhat at home in
China.
Abbe and I ordered the
pickle plate then I went with my usual "go big or go home" mentality
and ordered a Fryburger, an all-beef burger with American cheese, french fries
and an aioli sauce. It was glorious. For those of you that have had the pleasure
of eating a meal with me, you know that when I'm eating something glorious, I
pretty much inhale and don't come up for air. This burger was no exception.
Good burgers, good beers and kickass bartenders, this place was a hidden gem.
One of the bartenders was from Peru and she and I talked about all the
different places we've traveled to while the other bartender from the UK let me
sample a bunch of beers. For a moment, I had this flashback to New Zealand and
the situation reminded me of my time spent there, how I organically met people,
befriended them, then traveled with them to different towns and cities. Meeting
and connecting with people like that in the US is so hard to do.
Saturday I ventured to
Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Ok, wait, I'm lying. So I had full
intentions of visiting Tiananmen Square, and was making my way there when these
Chinese soldiers/policemen started to usher people into a line. I end up
getting sandwiched between a ton of people, a gate and a wall and I can't go
anywhere. I didn't even know what the hell I was in line for! There were about
600 people in front of me (not an exaggeration) and then the line starts moving
towards a security check point. There is this woman at the check point shouting
out commands in Chinese to all of the people and she's pointing left and
pointing right and I'm like, oh Christ, she's going to freak out because I
can't understand her. For fear that she will kill me, I go to my only defense,
I look at her and smile. She looks back and me and in perfect English, she goes
"hi, you have a bag, you can go in that line right there." I laughed
to myself and thanked her. Who knew. So guess what? I just put my bag through a
security check and I still have no idea WTF I am in line for. Finally I turn a
corner and BOOM, there he is. Chairman Mao is hanging on the wall staring right
back at me and this massive crowd of people. So at this point I realize that I
didn't have to go through Tiananmen Square to get to the Forbidden City, which
is what I thought I had to do, and why I was so confused. I apparently
completely bypassed Tiananmen and went right to the good stuff.
I walk under the Mao
portrait then into a very large courtyard, Then I stand in line for about 20
minutes to get my ticket to get into the actual Forbidden City. As usual I
bypass the educational headset option because I have the attention span of a
gerbil and I just want to take photos anyway.
Let me describe this
place in two words...fucking huge. You just keep walking further and further and
there's building upon building. The third Ming emperor had this place built in
14 years and somehow managed to find 200,000 OCD laborers to build this place.
Everything is meticulously handcrafted, from the painted details on the
buildings, to the tiled stone designs in the ground in the garden. It is really
breathtaking.
After about 2.5 hours
of walking through this city and a cheesecake popsicle break, I finally made my
way through to the end. I am taking a quick break outside the city walls when I
watch a little girl, all of six years old, hike up her dress and pop a squat on
the sidewalk like she was tailgating at a Kenny Chesney concert. I stopped dead
in my tracks. My body was frozen in sheer horror and my mouth hanging down to
the ground. I managed to grab my camera around my neck and snap a quick photo.
When looking back and admiring all the photos that I was extremely lucky to
have gotten to take on that Saturday, nothing seems to compare to the photo of
this little girl and that moment...
1. Her bare ass
hanging out from under her dress for all to see
2. While she peed on
the sidewalk
3. At a major Chinese
tourist attraction
4. While her dad
watched over in approval
Witnessing the small child peeing on the sidewalk
at a place that is the equivalent to peeing in front of the Statue of Liberty,
made me realize how much totally outrageous shit has just become normal to me
here. It quickly slapped me back into reality and reminded me that I wasn't in
Kansas anymore.
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