Starbucks on the other hand, is deceptively similar.  It serves it’s lattes ‘grande’ and everything down to the furniture seems like direct imports (doesn’t the checkerboard table below look familiar?).

The sugar comes in the same white or raw choices, but it’s from a different company and the packets have some delightful English translation work: “golden coffee sugar crystals”.  Mmm, just like mom used to make.

I haven’t been in the states for a while, so I’m not sure if this is standard, but I’m assuming it’s like simple syrup they use in iced coffees.  Or as known in China, “invert syrup sachet” which if I said that out of context, you’d probably have no idea what I was talking about.  ”Yeah, make mine a grande and be sure to get some invert syrup sachets!”

The branding though, absolutely consistent.  Green plastic cutlery.  The identical label with just a little Chinese added.  Of course, what you get isn’t quite the same — it’s heavy on the corn and red beans (sweet to the Asian palette) and there’s a mystery mayo-crab-something salad in the corner.  The dressing was vaguely asian-y like a little sesame oil was added in.  Overall, just fine for a salad from Starbucks.

The table advertising is the same, but note the blueberry cheesecake.  Blueberry is like THE fruit in Beijing, it seems to me.  If you want to make something fancy, just add blueberries.

This kid could be bored in a Starbucks anywhere in the world, but nope, he’s right here in Beijing.  (By the way, this place was packed.  Starbucks is crazy popular with expats and locals.)

Even the hardwood floors look the same.  It’s like someone picked up a Starbucks from Seattle and plopped it down in China.  Cole was kind enough to inspect the floor very closely and he says, “Yes, it’s practically the same.  I think I recognize this wood grain.”

The cashier spoke with perfect English, she practically had an American accent, and then everyone fell into Mandarin as they called the order back and forth to each other.  I asked my tutor if people like Starbucks here and she said, “I think if you work in the CBD  in one of the tall buildings [note: she means a corporate job, probably] then you’d like very much to bring your cup of Starbucks to work with you.”  Does she drink it? “No, it has too many calories! I’d have to run around all day…”

My new watermark. Do you like it? I hope it doesn't detract from the photo at all.

Dear Internet,

I love Pinterest.  I love the concept, the pinning, the inspiration, the sharing, and above all, the beautiful photography.  However, recently I’ve become aware of the fact that many professional photographers are quite angry that Pinterst is essentially using their images without permission.  At first I thought, “Wait, what’s the difference between Pinterest and Google Image Search, Facebook sharing, Twitter preview, Google +, Tumblr or any number of other sites that grab images based on user shares?”

The answer: Not much.

Now, there may be some legal technical blahblahblah that protects you as long as no photographer wins the lottery and decides to spend several years in court suing your ass off.  Since most photographers don’t win the lottery, and they don’t have the deep pockets of the film, publishing or music industry, there is a virutal free-for-all when it comes to the illicit use of photography online.

Think about it this way, what if instead of Google Images, there was Google Music and it just let you search every piece of music ever posted online?

The music industry would shut that down immediately.  

What if every book was scanned and placed online for free?

The publishing industry wouldn’t allow that.

What about film?

Wait, Youtube already pulls illegal clips of TV and film that their users upload.

What about photographers then?

Under the law, photographers have the same legal rights as musicians, writers or filmmakers regarding copyright, but they don’t have the deep pockets to protect their rights.

That kind of sucks.

The good news is that there is a really simple solution.  Let photographers (or anyone else) opt out of being shared.  Just like you can prevent Google spiders from scanning your site and indexing your content by placing a small line of code on your website (invisible to users), social media and sharing sites could let individual websites opt-out.  When a user tries to share from that site, it would be automatically blocked.

So simple.

What would this do?  

• Drop the illegal sharing of copyright protected photography significantly.
• Protect artists who don’t have the financial resources to pursue litigation.
• Make the internet more awesome.

Some users would find work arounds, but this will be a much smaller number and those accounts can be addressed individually.  For Pinterest especially, most people are sharing from their friend’s share pools.  Removing the source means that someone would have to maliciously go find that content and pin it, subversely, not something that I think the average Pinterest user is interested in or motived to do.

What happens if we don’t do something?

• Startups will struggle with growing legal consequences of user generated content <– so small companies can’t make new sites, only the big boys can, swinging even more online power to Facebook and Google.
• Content creators will create more and more barriers to their content or go dark, taking their work offline.  <– Bad for everyone.
• Internet killing bills like SOPA have more justification.
• Paywalls, watermarks, crazy javascript codes to prevent theft and other bad stuff will start showing up more <–  Yuck.
• Photographers and artists who are financially hurt by online theft will STOP MAKING COOL ART!  In other words, the internet will be officially evil.

Now, we just need the developers at Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google and Tumblr to listen.

Are you listening?

Love XOXO,

Christine

(Just one little blogger who likes the internet too much).

P.S. By the way, I like it when people share my photos, but then again, I get free traffic for it and it’s not like I’m licensing my photos for thousands of dollars.  However, I don’t think that just because I am okay with it that it’s okay for more traditional artists to have their rights ignored.  For the polar opposite point of view, see Trey Ratcliff’s recent article here.

Update: Pinterest just added new code (looks like in the last 24 hours, but I’m not sure if anyone is reporting on it, however it is in their help section) that allows you to block people from pinning from your site. The problem, however, ISN’T that people are going to download your photos and reupload. Sure that might happen, but really the problem is Tumblr, which is often the source for these images and THEY don’t let people opt out. I was looking through my pins and a surprising number (maybe 30-40%) are from Tumblr blogs, not the original source. Maybe Pinterest should look at blocking Tumblr wholesale as it’s basically no better than The Pirate Bay when it comes to copyright infringement.

The score card:

Facebook – no
Twitter – no
Pinterest – yes (see the code in the help section)
Google+ – no
Tumblr – no

Location: The Summer Palace (Yíhé Yuán, 颐和园) Beijing, China

I love the way the Summer Palace looks in the winter.  I feel like Cole should be marching out to Bjork’s Army of Me.  It’s my favorite place to bring Cole in Beijing so far, he can run from garden to garden, stepping through thresholds and running along ledges.  He’s getting even more brave.  On this day, a Chinese woman was cooing at him, so he grabbed her hand and brought her over to the souvenir stand.  When that didn’t produce a toy, he lifted his arms up, so she’d pick him up (and she did), which the crowd gathering around them though was hilarious, and they spent 10 minutes looking at bracelets and souvenirs.  Someone called him “Bābǐ wáwá” which I had recently learned is the Chinese name for Barbie Doll.  He does look like a little doll, tearing up the Imperial pavilion.

(If you’re in email or RSS and can’t see the image above, try going to this link.)

Total study time this week: 24 hours
Overall: 51 hours (average: 25.5 hours/week)
Written characters memorized: 33 (unchanged)
This week’s big test: translating recipes into Mandarin

If you are unable to see the video, click here.

Oh you shouldn't have

Drew and I aren’t much of a Valentine’s Day couple. But this year, I saw something Drew would really, really want: for me to have the cooking skill to whip up his favorite dish in the world — steamed pork buns. It’s basically airy, light buns that are soft and moist, filled with pork or veggies or whatever you want. Peanut butter and chocolate? Okay, go for it. Salty, garlicky shredded beef? Why not. If you can scoop it, you can fill a baozi with it.

This is probably the first V-day gift I’ve given Drew, maybe ever. Today I took a cooking class at The Hutong and found out that with a little baking yeast and flour you can make the buns, and fill them with whatever else you have around the house. For most of the pictures below I’m making a batch of Mushroom Bok Choy Baozi (steamed buns).

The flour

For the dough:

• 500 grams flour
• 40 grams sugar
• 280 ml water
• 2 tablespoon corn starch
• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoon yeast
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

The yeast in very warm water.

Mix together your dry ingredients: the flour, corn starch, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and set aside. Then take very warm, but not boiling water and mix it with the yeast and sugar and set aside for 15 minutes (they called this ‘feeding the yeast’).

The fillings

For the filling (mushroom bok choy):

• 500 grams bok choy (or spinach if you prefer)
• 100 gram dried shitake maushroom, minced
• 5 minced spring onions
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon cooking wine
• 2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper

Dried shitake mushrooms after soaking in warm water.

While you’re waiting for the yeast to activate, chop your mushrooms (having soaked them in warm water) and spring onions.

Bok choy must die.

Brutalize some bok choy.

The yeast gets all bubbly

By now, your yeast is ready, so add in your dry ingredients from the dough recipe.  Stir it until the flour is well coated and then pour in the oil.  Using your hands, form the mixture into a ball and work it until all of the ingredients are incorporated, but not too much as you’ll make the dough hard.

Dough

If it looks something like this, you’re good to go.  Now cover it with a moist towel and stick it in the oven at 150 F for 1 hour.

Sauteed mushrooms

While you’re waiting for the dough, heat up a wok over medium heat and add a tablespoon of oil.  Add the spring onions and cook until soft.  Then add the mushrooms.  Cook for a minute and then add the soy sauce and cooking wine.  Cook for another minute and then remove from heat.

I would just eat this

Now mix the sauteed mushroom with the bok choy you murdered above and add the rest of the filling ingredients: salt, sesame oil, sugar and white pepper.

The filling finished

Give it a stir.  Admire your handiwork.  Take a few photos.  Check to see what’s happening on Twitter.  Okay, now the dough is done.

Enough for two baozi

Take your ball of dough and break it into two halves.  Then slowly roll one half in your hand until it’s a long tube.  Then pull it into six pieces and roll those into balls (and then repeat with the other half of the dough).  Each ball is for one baozi.  If you want them really fluffy you can put them back into the oven and let them rise again.

Lovely

Or you can just jump to the next step: filling.

After the magic

Now, there’s some kind of magic that happens between the scooping of the filling and the formation of the bun.  The way they showed us was to fold over the edge onto itself, like you’re gathering the dough into a little purse.  Then you twist and push it down so the swirl is on top.

Like this, sort of

I never did it quite right, but they taste the same no matter what.  The technique was to make a small fold, twist the bun in your hand, fold, twist, fold twist, etc until you run out of dough.

The monster steamer

Then you steam them for 8 minutes.  12 if you fill it with meat.

The final product, yum!

They are so good straight out of the steamer.

This is a chicken one we also made in class

It’s like the freshest bread and a piping hot yummy bite of something, served together

We ate a lot of these

By the way, this is considered breakfast in China.  BREAKFAST!  My husband just cried a single tear, I think.

Happy Valentines Day, Honey!

Yes, I’m a dork, I made a heart-shaped one for Drew.  I think he even noticed as he scarfed it down.  Best gift ever!

(Update: No, I didn’t say Steampunk Pork Buns, but omg that’s an awesome (1) idea (2).)

During this moment, they weren’t talking to me, but to each other, and I was trying to follow along, but I felt overwhelmed and maybe it was because we were sitting so close to each other or because they were talking so loudly but I started to feel a little woozy. I wondered who I was to insert myself into these women’s lives, how surreal it was that they live in China and this foreigner, this American has somehow held them hostage in her home by paying them to sit and talk to her. I felt keenly aware that I hadn’t earned my way into this situation, I hadn’t learned the language enough to make their acquaintance and we weren’t friends, really, although they treated me as sweetly as anyone. Anyway, it was in this moment of surreal reflection that I two thoughts: first, ‘I’m completely in over my head’ and second, I felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude. The gratitude felt like a swell of emotion, like I could have cried or laughed or hugged them right there.

When I think about it, really get honest with myself, I’m not entirely sure why I feel compelled to push myself and do these kinds of things. It’s always so hard, and I always complain. Yet, I keep coming back. Maybe I’m chasing that feeling.

Now, Cole’s involved and I’m not sure how I feel about that either. While the nanny is playing with Cole and talking to him in Mandarin that I can’t understand, I have pang. I’m a little worried about him changing and not knowing him anymore. Or about giving him too strange of a childhood. On some level, I want him to be like me, to have grown up with only one language, so that I can understand how he thinks. If I have a bilingual child, when I grew up monolingual, how can I possibly understand his mind? That pang was a little bit of fear, the worry that I won’t be able to pull it off. What if he turns to me and says something that I don’t understand? I don’t ever want to see that look of dawning awareness on his face.

Of course, I suspect I’m a little bit jealous of the nanny, I want him to like her, but not too much, like a little wink between us, where he’s like, “okay, but she’s no mama!”

I’m feeling a lot of crazy things right now.

At times it feels like vertigo, and I catch myself observing from somewhere above my body, above the thick cloud of impenetrable language that fills my day. Yet, this week, my refrain has been simple, “I am so lucky, I am so lucky.” It was easy to think once that I deserved this life, maybe when I was three months outside of my job and traveling in Europe, still living off of savings that took me a year to amass and the selling of my house and most of my possessions. Then, I had earned it. I deserved it. Now? Now, I’m so lucky to be still traveling after all these years, making a living on my writing and photography, staying at home with my son and my husband. I work hard too, but so do a lot of people. Really my hard work is just being polite. It’s the least I can do to honor the luck that has come into my life.

Those are the big things. Now for the little ones. First, my Ayi has the mad hook up.

I’m not sure what she says, but when housecleaning comes, she doesn’t let them in, but she always comes back with handfuls of miniature shampoos and shower gels. Before she came, we never got free product! Now we’re awash in the stuff.

She also takes the time to line up all my toiletries in neat little rows, which I always forget how she does it, so I end up messing it up for her everyday. You know we actually clean before she comes? We’re like, “Get up! Get up! The Nanny is coming! We have to hide the evidence! She can’t know about last night’s noodle incident! And whatever else embarrassingly messy stuff we did! See isn’t having help great! Now hand me that disinfectant!”

We haven’t cleaned this much in years. Or gotten up this early. It’s the most normal we’ve lived in a long time. Well, normal in a parallel universe where everyone speaks like ole timey newspaper editors (there’s a lot of shh and arr in Mandarin like “Lishen herre, kid, ya see?” but you know, in Chinese) and blueberry is considered an acceptable pizza topping. Other than that? Totally normal.

Location: Hou Hai Lake, Beijing, China

I had this vision. I’d take Cole out into the wintry wonderland and show him how to make snow angels and throw snowballs. We’d go ice skating and drink hot chocolate (hot milk tea for me). His cheeks would get ruddy from the cold but he’d be happy and we’d laugh and laugh and…

Okay, so there is no snow in Beijing this year and my son is too little for the cold. Still, I thought pushing him around Hou Hai Lake might be a suitable middle ground. As you can see, Cole did not agree. Too bad you can’t ice skate in the tropics. On the upside, Drew did manage to take a quick video of these ice chairs, something I’ve only ever seen in China.

At home, this is what we do for fun instead.

Total study time this week: 27 hours
Written characters memorized: 33
This week’s big verbal test: hiring a nanny in Mandarin

If you are unable to see the video, click here.

On Friday, we were told that we had to move out of our apartment over the weekend.

This was me: “AAaaarg! But we JUST got settled in! I THOUGHT THIS PART WAS OVER!” while rolling around on the bed, in the most pathetic whining session ever.

I might have stomped my feet around the apartment saying, “but. I. don’t. want. to. move. out. for. two. days.”

Even my two-year-old was embarrassed for me.

So why the move? It’s a long, confusing tale of scheduling and communication mishaps, but ultimately, despite help from my tutor to translate and mediate, we packed up our freshly laid out apartment and moved into the the MetroPark Hotel down the road.

On reflection, two days of take-out food and movie watching didn’t seem too bad, except we had just hired a nanny and our tutor was scheduled to come every day at 11 am, so we were looking at several days of paying for services that we couldn’t use. It could be worse.

Hold that thought for a moment.

Right there.

Saturday, my tutor texts me. He’s resigning. His father-in-law has passed away. I’m somewhat convinced that this is just a nice way of saying, “I really hate being your tutor,” because usually people don’t abruptly quit their job without even picking up their weekly pay unless you are truly the worse student ever. In fact all week I was expecting this text, so I wanted to respond, “Wow, what took you so long?”.

He was a really good tutor. He would let me say the tone wrong 25 times in a row if needed until I got it right. I think I literally drove him mad, and he’s currently recuperating for “exhaustion” in a mental health facility.

Still, we have a nanny.

Wait.

Sunday night we text our nanny to tell her that we’re not in our apartment yet and she shouldn’t come on Monday. A little background: our nanny speaks no English. Which was the idea, the whole point of getting a nanny was to make sure we had a constant trickle of Mandarin being spoken in the house, especially for Cole’s sake. So in order to tell her not to come, I have to text her in Chinese characters. I’m up to the task. (I think). I write, “Hello! No come tomorrow. Come Tuesday. Okay?” (Here’s the text so that my Chinese readers can get a good laugh: 您好。没有明天再来。来星期二。好吗？).

No response.

On Monday morning, I send Drew to the apartment lobby at 9 AM in case she shows up. She doesn’t. Okay she must have gotten the text. All is good. Maybe responding with a 好 is just a waste of China Mobile minutes. She’s probably very excited to start work on Tuesday. Right?

Wrong.

Tuesday morning comes and by 9:15 am, we decide we should call her. Of course with my Mandarin being the kind that is limited to a set of phrases that I memorized for her interview plus my nearly complete inability to decipher her response over the phone without the helpful clues of body language, we decide to find a translator.

The woman who works the desk in reception seemed friendly. “Drew, go ask her!” I say from my comfy couch, wearing my pjs and brand new pink fuzzy slippers. I should mention I also have bed-head and a fleece blanket wrapped around me. The new apartment is colder than the last one, and I’m slowly turning into an old lady who drinks too much tea and swears a lot.

So Drew takes the elevator down, dials the number, hands the phone to the woman at reception, she has a lengthy conversation with our to-be nanny. Afterwards, she hands the phone back to Drew and says, “She’s not coming.”

“Why?”

Well apparently our friendly receptionist doesn’t speak much English either, which is the point as well, believe me I get it, I’m not freezing-my-ass-off in Beijing for the fresh air. We’re here specifically for the fact that everyone speaks Mandarin. The only problem is: we don’t yet.

So Drew asks her to call back, and they talk some more and the most we find out is “She’s in the village four hours away.”

No idea what happened. Moving on.

So I email a tutor agency about getting a replacement. For roughly twice the price of my previous tutor I can have someone come this week. Sold. I’m out of options and I don’t have time to deal with placing an ad again.

I dig up the nanny referrals we paid for and find a second option. I send Drew out again. (See how this works yet? I either have the best husband ever or he’s secretly enjoying these child-free breaks from the house. Probably both.) This time, I give him the new nanny’s phone number and he sets off to convince the receptionist to do one more ad hoc translation for us. She calls, talks for a bit and hands back the phone. “She has your number, she will call you when she comes.”

“When is that?” I ask Drew when he comes back.

He shrugs.

“Okay, well it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

Within 72 hours we swapped apartments, nannies, and language tutors. Is this China or just me? Like so many things, I’ll probably never know.

By the way, before any of my traveler friends feel too sorry for my fish-out-of-water expat lifestyle, let me just point out exhibit A of why staying long term is better than short term:

Yeah, that’s right. Not just one meat cleaver but two. Try to fit that in your backpack, you blithely traveling and not dealing with setting up an apartment happy-go-lucky travelers! I can chop things, what can you do? I don’t want to brag, but I also now own a bamboo cutting board that’s bigger than my carry on bag. We’re expat-licious. My son hugged the floor the first time he saw carpet because he’s been traveling so long, he didn’t know it existed and thought the whole world was now covered in bedding. And now I have knives. What is this madness?

Location: Beijing, China watching 喜羊羊与灰太狼 on youku.com

The nanny starts on Tuesday, a Hebei-transplant who doesn’t speak any English but who is sweet and can at least pretend to understand my slightly mispronounced and wrong-toned Mandarin.  I consider her hire a big milestone for me, not only did I conduct the interview in Mandarin (with prepared notes) but managed such niceties as “would you like something to drink?” (no, she did not) and “please have a seat” (she did).  When I’m watching chinese cartoons with Cole, I recognize the individual words now, even if I can’t tell you what they mean.  Little things.  Maybe Cole is learning too.  He seems riveted to his shows whether it’s in English or Mandarin.  He has noticed that we’ve been swapping out the language on some of his favorite movies (the first time we played Toy Story in Mandarin he kept looking at us, like “uh, guys, did you slip something in my drink because I’m freaking losing my mind here.”).  Sorry bubs!  Didn’t think you’d notice.  That is totally messed up though, swapping out all his favorite movies for Mandarin versions.  That’s the kind of thing that your child will bring up when they’re 30 and having kids of their own.  ”Mom, did you replace all my cartoons when I was 2? I have some weird memory about Woody sounding just like Jackie Chan.”  Hmm, nope, not that I can recall dear.

Oh crap.  Right.  We do have the equivilant of a traveling film studio because of our work on the documentary.  So here goes. Cole and I are learning Mandarin together.  I’m studying with a tutor, he’s watching a lot of Chinese cartoons (how is this fair?).  I might have a really bad case of the potty mouth, a raging cold and inadvertently offend/mischaracterize Italians and/or Italy.

If you are having trouble viewing the video, go directly to it here.

Okay, does this do it for you?

That’s not an overexposed shot, that’s the view from my desk. According to BeijingAir right now it’s “unhealthy” levels. Last night it was perfectly clear and rated “good”. It comes, it goes, and after a month of living here, it’s as much a part of our life as the weather. Is it sunny out? How’s the air?

I thought about leaving, came close to doing it, until I researched other cities in China (like Harbin in the north) and Beijing isn’t even the worst.  It’s not even in the top 10 for worst air quality.  I could go south, but then I’d be in areas where Cantonese is spoken on the street, not Mandarin.  It’s only six months.  It might cause me to have a cold longer or aggravate my allergies, but from everything I’ve read, spending six months here won’t do any permanent damage, even for small children.

So we decided to stay.

Why? I think I’m slowly becoming charmed by Beijing.  I like the idea of going somewhere unpopular but culturally important.  I feel like I’m on an adventure.  If nothing else, I’ll learn a lot.  Plus, we finally found an apartment.

I had no idea how unprepared I was to live with an almost 2-year old in a hotel room for a month.  He needs space!  Or at least warm weather.  If he doesn’t have either, he’s kind of a mess… bursting into tears when we put on his clothes, clinging to me, refusing to walk anywhere, just wanting to be at home, with mom, in bed.  So I did that.  It’s not his fault that I wanted to go to China, so I made myself as flexible and malleable to his desires as possible.  We snuggled.  I stayed in.  I sent Drew out for food and read books while Cole used my body as a jungle gym.  Slowly he’s been adjusting, but the biggest breakthrough came when we stepped into our new 2-bedroom apartment.  He can be naked.  He can run!  He can climb things!  He can have his cut-up bananas on the sofa and watch cartoons.  He can shove his toy cars under the couch and then throw my books off my desk.  There’s drawers for hiding mom’s shoes and full bathtub for mini-swims.  We’re back in business.

Granted, our apartment hunt took a long time, even if you let me play the “But I’ve got a toddler!” card (you are letting me play that, right?). I had a lot of people giving me advice, but the first thing you should know: I’m cheap.

I really don’t like the idea of paying an agent a month’s rent (or $1000) to find me an apartment I’ll be in for six months. Plus, landlords in China want a few months rent in advance for a year rental. For short term rentals, they often want the entire rent (all six months in our case), plus a month’s rent deposit.

Apartments are kind of expensive here. For us that means at least $1000 but realistically more like $1500. So that’s $9000 for rent, $1500 for the agent, and $1500 for the deposit. Oh and they want that in cash — in this case, all $12000 of it. Which means doing a wire transfer to a bank in China and withdrawing it here (not even sure how that would work) or trying to take out that money via ATM which at $300 withdrawal per day, it would take me 40 days just to get the money on hand (assuming I spent nothing else). I’m sure I could have worked it out if I had to but I wanted to avoid that. Second thing you should know: I’m stubborn.

Finally, Beijing is big. It’s about an hour cab ride from one end of the city to the other, and that’s not even all the way out to the suburbs like Shunyi.  I really hate the idea of being stuck somewhere lame, so I wanted to find the perfect place that’s close to everywhere, cheap and has flexible short term living arrangements.

To modify a popular expression in graphic design (cheap, good or fast): There are three things you can have in Beijing:

1. Cheap
2. Good location
3. Clean, nice apartment

Now, pick two.

Third thing about me: I can be obsessive.

So we started in Wangfujing (near the Forbidden City) and moved hotels every couple of days, checking out different areas, coming close to staying in Haidian (near the universities), then perhaps Xidan St. (nice apartment, but located in the middle of a mall), then near Sanlitun (too expensive) and finally Wangjing (Koreatown, a hike from downtown but cheap).

I was determined to find a place that met all three. I’m cheap, stubborn and obsessive. I failed, but I did get a month-long tour of Beijing, and I’m sort of pleased to say I know my way around the different districts pretty well now. (I can also find the silver lining in just about anything).

In the end we went for the big, clean, nicely appointed apartment in Wangjing, in an area that fits us well (mostly locals living here, an art scene at 798 Art Zone and a great market next door) but we’re about a $10 cab ride from any of the tourist-related activities, a concession since I’d still like to visit the old Hutongs more and take some cooking classes, but one I felt the best about making.

It’s a serviced apartment, so we’re renting month to month. It’s still pricey ($1500/mo) but if you factor in agent fees and deposits, then it’s not bad compared to straight rentals for short term leases. (Sorry I won’t share the name of the place until after we leave, but you can find similar places online).

Resources:

Timeout Beijing has an excellent housing guide which is pretty damn accurate about the pros/cons of different areas. Their color-coded map of Beijing is practically a guide to everywhere we looked: here’s the map.  The Beijinger is a good resource, but chock-a-block full of scammy listings where the photo isn’t real or the agent does a swap (“Oh that place *just* got rented, but here’s a twice as expensive option”).  Craigslist, Homeaway and Roomarama weren’t helpful.  For agented rentals there are these sites: Beijing Relocation, Fangeasy, Homelink. Ctrip and Agoda are good for finding hotels, although check both, sometimes the price is cheaper on one or the other.  They also list serviced apartments or hotel rooms with kitchens or multiple bedrooms.  Student and Beijing resident Nate Nault recently wrote about his experience “Finding My First Apartment Abroad” and Timeout Beijing also has a round up this month called Apartment Horror Stories.  For any of the listing sites, using the map feature will help you pinpoint where you’re looking until you start getting a hang of neighborhood names (the same area might be called a few different names depending on the site).

And that, my friends is how I found my Beijing apartment.  I’m going to take a nap now.

Location: Some hotel, Beijing, China

Can you guess the number of parenting fails in this photo?  Let me get you started:

1. Despite my entirely misleading photo last week of Cole clothed, and outside, this is in fact a lie, and he has been nearly naked for almost a month now.

2.  My son is naked sitting on a hotel chair, where invariably, other people have sat.  Naked.  I try not to think about it.

3.  We are in a HOTEL.  Not an apartment, not in a flat, but in a hotel room because after approaching a month in Beijing we still haven’t figured out where to live.

4.  This is the 10th hotel we’ve been at as we’ve moved around the city.  And my child is still talking to me.  Well not talking, more like making screeching noises at me.  Hmmm.  Maybe he’s trying to tell me something.

5.  He’s watching a movie.  Puss in Boots.  Which despite all my child-free ideas about parenting, I have not actually given him a television-free childhood or succeeded in only showing him educational films, unless you consider  Antonio Banderas’ Spanish accent something of a cross-cultural immersion study (um, no? damn).

6.  Given that the words naked, hotel and puss are in this post, I’m probably going to want to stab myself in the face later when I see the search traffic landing on this page (although sometimes it works in my favor… I have a post How to Have Sex on the Road and Not Wake Your Child and it ranks well for “how to have sex without waking my parents“.  I can just imagine the horrified expressions on these teenagers’ faces as they realize that while they were trying to figure out how to get it on in the next room, so were their parents. Honestly, I consider it a public service).

And that’s just off the top of my head.

The restaurant is beautiful.

We ordered sweet potato salad for Cole and they brought out this (Cole loved it):

After bringing us the appetizer and drinks, the duck is brought out to a cutting table in the back of the restaurant.  I’m not sure why they set it up under such harsh lighting, but it’s pretty dramatic.

Slice by slice your duck is carefully dismantled.

Each person gets their own condiment tray with cucumber, radish, soy bean paste, garlic paste, sugar and what I’m calling “some other stuff”.

The duck is brought out.  You get two of these:

There’s also some paper thin pancakes for the table.

You create your own duck-condiment-pancake design…

Fold it up, and eat it.  Yum.  The duck is leaner than other places (a good thing) and the duck fat and skin is rendered into this crispy counterpart to the soft duck flesh.

You can make it savory or sweet…

Garlicky or salty…

Om.

Nom.

Nom.

Afterwards, they bring you oranges kept chilled over ice with… of course… dry ice for effect.  The effect being, ‘oh god these oranges taste good’ and your almost two-year-old trying to catch dry ice smoke with a chopstick.

By the time we left, the place was nearly cleared out, but the place is huge.

I love all the little details.

Lovely.  I’m not really doing it justice, but here it is (there’s also an entire bar area with a chic lounge).

So good.  If you make it to Beijing, it’s such a cliche, but you have to get Peking duck, and if you want something exceptional, then it’s Da Dong (they also have a huge ala carte menu that looks absolutely amazing and terrifying — I have to go back for the braised sea cucumber).  It’s a little pricy, running in the $30-$40 pp range (or more if you order drinks) but well worth it.

Da Dong Roast Duck 北京大董烤鸭店

5th floor, Jinbao Dasha, Jinbao Jie, Dongcheng District

东城区金宝街金宝大厦5层

Daily 11am-10pm

Pouring myself some tea now, preparing to venture outside for a brisk temple tour around Beijing.

Did you get what you needed? Here’s the full list:

Muhahahaha. Cozy blanket. Snuggly baby. Warm cup of tea. (Check.check.check.)

It was absolute bedlam outside tonight, and Drew came back half deaf in one ear. I think he caught on to my sudden excess of maternal instincts, eyeing me up when he walked in. “You know, if you want, I can watch the baby while you go out.”

“Nope! That’s okay, besides these photos are perfect.”

新年快乐!
恭喜发财!

Location: Dōngchéng district, Běijīng

We wandered through the ‘old man park’ where men sit outside in their parkas and jaunty cossack caps, playing a board game that looks to me like checkers, but might be Chinese Chess (Xiàngqí) if my googlese is any good.  We chatted with this little girl’s parents in the only language we shared — cooing at our child, taking photos and smiling.  Hmmm, maybe my letter worked.

Oops. Okay so my Top 100 Travel Blogs of 2011 idea was ambitious, and as it turns out, impossible. I decided to change tack.

I went through the list and pulled out what I considered to be the stand outs. The surprising, the quirky, the beautiful, the just plain good.

I’ve put those first, because I think it’s important to highlight new talent. And I’m hoping that they’ll take care of me when I’m old and in my travel blogging retirement years. Feed me pureed peaches and read to me from my Twitter stream, that kind of thing.

Then, since I’ve completely screwed the pooch on the original concept, I decided to curate an equal list of what I think are the best travel blogs overall. Same thing. Blatant attempt to curry favor with people who hopefully will invite me to their movie premiere or book signing or their first moon expedition (sponsored by G Adventures, naturally) or wherever their talent may take them.

So that’s it. 8 of the best new travel blogs in 2011. 8 of the best travel blogs overall. My reading list for 2012.

Real people. Really cool sites. Best list ever. (In my humble opinion, but please tell me if you agree.)

Best New Travel Blogs in 2011:

Fly Away Birdie

Sandstone and Amber

So Many Places

Captain and Clark

Homeless and Confused

Living If

Where My Toothbrush

Spanish Sabores

Best Overall for 2011:

None of these blogs were started in 2011, but they are consistently good blogs that I love.  If you don’t love at least one of these blogs, then you are not human.  In fact, have you taken the psychopath test?  See #7.  Unless you’re just #4.

TheEverywhereist

LegalNomads

JohnnyVagabond

Snaps & Blabs

Aviators and a Camera

Inside the Travel Lab

100 Miles Highway

Hungry Ghost Food and Travel

You are awesome. I just know it. And yes, we got off to a rocky start. And okay, yeah my in-laws are now emailing me, “I just read your blog, OMG I hope you can get out of this. It sounds like an awful place to be.” That’s entirely my fault. Some of my readers have been emailing me too. It might have been the picture of the smog-fog. Can I be honest? That didn’t look good.

So yes, it’s taken us longer to figure out where to live than I thought it would and yeah, I don’t love some of food here which can be very bland or super salty or dripping with grease (or all three, sadly). When I get a kitchen, I promise I will learn the names of all the dishes and stop playing Menu Roulette at every meal. And yes, I have to use a VPN to get online, but that’s half the adventure right? Like when I almost rented some guy’s flophouse for double the local rate, I didn’t get mad, I laughed about it. See! I can take a joke!

Today, my Kindle broke. I’ve been in China for two weeks, and believe me I’m not missing the irony of having a broken Kindle in the country that manufactures them AND the one place Amazon won’t send me a replacement. I told everyone on Twitter I was going to raid the factory in a covert op and people stopped their busy day to respond to me and tell that that was A Bad Idea. I’m now in the position of needing people to tell me to not break into buildings in foreign countries in order to replace my electronics through what can only be called theft.

I’m not doing well.

It might be the cold I got the moment I arrived, which my son has been feeding back to me every day with his germy kisses. When he gets excited he now sounds like a pug.

Or maybe it’s just me having a bad attitude about the freezing weather.

I’m not sure. Whatever it is, I know it’s not you. You, darling, are great. I don’t know you that well, but really all these complaints of mine are just the itchy discomfort of a woman trying to adapt too quickly.

So tonight, I’m calling a truce. Can I do that? Can we just start over?

I’ll stop pointing out your cultural differences like they are character flaws and you can stop breaking my stuff and help the swelling on my left eye go down (don’t ask). That would be fan-tastic. If you could also let my son know that when I try to put on his pants it’s not because I hate him, it’s so we can go ice skating, which he doesn’t know yet what that is, but it’s super fun.

Sort of like China.

XOXO- Christine

(PS Seriously, please don’t break my iPhone.)

(PPS Please note I do like getting emails where people are worried about me. Tonight’s post was almost called, “No seriously! And Then I Almost Died!” but I’m saving that for sweeps.)