Chad’s Blog

This particular temple fair was lacking a temple, but certainly had a carnival atmosphere of a fair.

The park was packed with people playing carnival games, winning large stuffed animals, and snacking on all kinds of treats.

The highlight, apart from people watching, was snacking. I thought that chatang was disappointing. You have your choice of all kinds of powders in your bowl, to which they add steaming hot water from a dragon’s mouth. I think the two mystery powders I tried were duds. I’m sure there’s a tasty mix somewhere.

While the strange powders in a bowl left something to be desired, the meats and fruits on a stick were great.

They were so good that I missed my bus while trying to decide which fruit on a stick coated in caramelized sugar I liked best. I still have no idea what fruits I was trying, but I now know I can point to my favourite.

We were told that Beijing has a tradition hosting fairs at temples that dates back thousands of years. While some have moved to parks and other open spaces, some temples, like the Dongyue Taoist Temple still continue the tradition.

Some showed up to pray for blessings in the year of the tiger.

Others showed up for the entertainment and the games.

My contribution was adding my name (in English and Chinese) to the thousands of other red wooden ornaments lining the central pathway.

Being an entirely practical religion, you can pray to one of hundreds of gods represented around the outer perimeter walls. To aid you in your search for the right deity, they’re organized into departments. I think I found the right one.

Unfortunately, the cast of characters in the department seemed to leave a little to be desired. I guess the guy with the club is encouraging me to to be honourable in performing my duties.

People had been warming up for the big night all week. Beijing has sounded like a war zone for the past few days with rapid fire explosions coming continuously from all directions. The barrage came to a peak at midnight of New Year’s eve when fireworks were set off from every open space in Beijing.

I was absolutely awestruck. Even the Macy’s Fourth of July show in New York can’t compare with the intensity of Beijing’s completely uncoordinated spectacle.

We specifically sought out a bar with a roof-top patio near the Drum and Bell Towers for the event.

This was one event where I really wish I had video on my camera. Still photos just can’t capture the moment. Since my camera was giving me error messages all night, an upgrade might be coming sooner than I was expecting.

I know that bad English translations are nothing new in Chinese menus. While the concept is not new, these three dishes seemed pretty original to me.

I’ve seen some Chinese rivers, and I’m pretty confident I want never to eat sausage that tastes like one of them.

I knew that Jew’s ear was too specific to be just a bad translation.  Turns out that it’s a common name for a fungus.  The Chinese characters describe it as tree ear.

While we avoided these particular dishes, everything we ate was delicious.

Hi, I’m Chad, but you can call me 韩思乐. Now I just need to remember how to write it.

The big red zeros sum indicate the number of tickets available for various destinations. That’s an indication of how frantic the Beijing West train station was on the Saturday before Chinese New Year.

A colleague organizes a photo club that has monthly outings to random locations in the city. This month’s outing was to the train station to capture the exodus from Beijing.

My assignment was “patience” and “motion.” I enjoyed trying to capture motion through slow shutter speeds, but I had a little more difficulty figuring out how to capture patience.

If you’re looking for a five foot tall cement tiger signing karaoke, I know where you can get one.

I was more inclined to buy Chinese New Year decorations to celebrate the advent of the year of the tiger.

What better way to get settled in a new apartment than a trip to Ikea.  It’s not quite the shopping experience I had predicted, but it was definitely an experience.

I went with a couple of colleagues on my first Saturday morning in the city. I knew it was going to be interesting when I saw tour buses unloading hundreds of people taking an organized day trip to Ikea. Not only is the store absolutely huge, it’s absolutely packed.

Seeing everyone hanging out made me realize that I needed to come back with my camera. Luckily, the next weekend I realized I also needed some new lights for the apartment.

I particularly liked the beds and couch sections where everyone was just hanging out.

A huge number of people just went from one well decorated room to another taking photos of themselves.

The LA Times even ran a story last year on the fun that could be had at the Beijing Ikea.

I didn’t see much on my way into the city since I arrived at night in a snow storm. Here’s what I woke up to.

Just for fun I’ve logged in to ICQ. Seems no one uses it anymore.