Ice biking, Chinese new year preparation and Wangfujiing shopping street

This Saturday - Ice biking and new year monsters!

This weekend I staid in Beijing. So my colleague - friend invited me to a Beijing winter trip with her family on Saturday. We went to Houhai lake which was frozen and went ice-skating and yes, ice-biking there. What is ice-biking Ice-bikes are bikes you can pedal with on the ice, but the difference from normal bikes is that ice-bikes have vats (Kufen') under the wheels (see photo). It was great fun! The sun was shining, the lake wasn't too crowded and we had a lot of fun! I even taught Julia (that's the English name of my colleauge - friend's daughter) some ice-skating. I was astonished I only fell down once despite the fact that I had not been ice-skating for ages.

For lunch, they took me out to a mushroom hotpot restaurant. Hotpot means that in the middle of the table there is a big pot for soup and you all eat out of it. The soup was great. It had more than sixty different kinds of mushrooms in it. Hotpot is a typical Chinese kind of dish. I especially liked the so-called tiger mushroom. Tiger mushroom is supposed to be especially good to prevent cancer.

On the way we also stopped to take a photo of the new olympic venues (National Aquatics Centre and National Stadium - interesting modern architecture!) which were recently finished. Many cars were parking on the side of the road already just to take a picture of themselves and the olympic venue.

In the afternoon we (Claudia and me) went on a culture lecture to learn about Chinese new year. The Chinese have a different year from ours. This year, Chinese new year starts on the 8th of February. That's why right now everybody is preparing (buying presents, etc. because the day before Chinese new year is somehow like our Christmas Eve). In the course we learned to paint some red Chinese calligraphy spring couplets. These are used to hang in front of your door to scare the "Xi" (Nian) monster off which is supposed to be afraid of red things - as far as I understood this legend.

The Chinese also have their own system of horoscopes. For their system, it doesn't matter in which month you are born, but in which year. E.g. for people born in 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993 and 2005 the astrologic sign is a rooster (Hahn / Henne). Roosters are supposed to be diligent, quick-witted, bold and pragmatic. Famous roosters were Confuciusa and Catherine the Great. I for example am a rooster as well (now, have a guess which year I was born :-)). If you don't know what Chinese astrologic sign you are, you can write me and I can find out if you want.

I shall tell you more about Chinese new year as soon as I participate in some further new year's events.

This Sunday - You can eat worms in Wangfujing shopping street!

Wangfujing is said to be the biggest shopping street in Beijing with a lot of malls, but also touristy shops and weird foodstalls nearby. In some part of the street, cars are not allowed and the street ressembles rather normal shopping streets there.

But I was scared off the foodstalls when I saw that they offered some worms / insects roasted on a spit (Spiess). And of course the street was very crowded because many Chinese buy new year gifts right now.

Intersting thing: I saw a Chinese brand shop there selling sport clothes and shoes. Have a look at my photo of its window whether the sign and their slogan sound familiar for you....? :-).

I quite liked the chopstick (Essstaebchen) shops where they only sell chopsticks in all variations. Now I have not only new Chinese books, but also new pairs of chopsticks. Hehe (she is Chinese, yes, this is her real name) supported me in getting some discount on the books. There is really hardly anything in China where you cannot get a discount or discount card. For the end of the day we tried out a new vegetarian restaurant "Lotus in the moonlight". Beancurd roasted duck (Tofuente) - Yummie!

Last thing: Last time I told you that at Jennie Lou's, the international supermarket, they had introduced linen bags and do not offer free plastic bags any more as before. Today I read this is a new Chinese law! They have a garbage problem here. That's why from the 1st of June 2008 supermarkets are not allowed to give their customers free plastic bags anymore. Now we know why.