Okay, I did not eat these noodles. But every morning at the hotel in Xi'an, this good man was making fresh noodles and cooking them for people to have for breakfast. They truly fascinate me stretching and twisting the noodles before they are cut and cooked. He let me take a video and I got these pictures. Absolutely fascinating. He was a master at the process and those eating them had very fresh noodles.
Our ride today would be a bullet train to Beijing. We loved bullet trains in Japan and looked forward to this opportunity to ride one again. The train station was shrouded in a foggy, overcast morning. Add to that those buildings in the back ground and it was a perfect set up for another thing we learned in China. They make 'ghost cities'. These cities have huge high rises that are unoccupied. No one lives there, not even the hobos. We were told the logic behind it but it never made any logical sense to me at all. Those building in the distance are huge, tall buildings. They have no electricity, no doors, just concrete structures ready to be completed but never going to be completed, at least in the near future. They are an 'investment'. In China, the government owns all the land. So, even when they build a building that will be occupied, the people purchase the right to use that property for so many years at huge fees. They put in their own windows and doors and interior construction finishings. All three of our Chinese guides assured us their apartments are all only about 1,000 square feet. They each have a living space, a tiny kitchen and several bedrooms for multiple generations of a family. So these ghost cities are built like a regular building would be for apartments and then left. Again, amazing.
Just a couple of pictures of the countryside as we enjoyed our 4 1/2 hour ride on the bullet train from Xi'an to Bejing.
Upon arrival in Beijing, our group was ready for lunch. Breakfast and lunch were provided each day. We were on our own for dinner each day. The trip is set up this way so you can find American fast food if you want once each day. One of our lunches in Guilin was to have been hot pots. That didn't happen and I can't even remember why because we were always fed well. So, the adjustment was made and we started our visit in Beijing with hot pots. Alright, this was one that was okay but not my favorite. Claude, on the other hand, loved his and was ready to find hot pots on line and us start having them every week. Alan and Ida Mae do have them every week. But, it was fun to try and not awful. You put in them things that cook and then you eat the cooked veggies and meats and then drink the broth which is now flavored with whatever you chose to cook in your liquid. If I could pick only things I really liked, I probably would have enjoyed mine better. If memory serves, they are a Mongolian dish and are especially nice in the winter when it is very cold.
Then we were off to the 'hutongs'. These are very old, narrow streets. They have homes that are walled off, four in a group, with a common courtyard in the middle of these tiny homes. They were built long ago with no running water and no electricity (i.e. no bathrooms). If you own one of these, you use the community bathroom and shower. Unless you are very wealthy, then you buy a whole set of four and have it improved and it is now worth $1,000,000. When the Olympics were in Beijing, the plan was to tear this area down and put in parking lots. The residents protested enough to save this historic area. Now tourists come and rent rickshaws to take rides through them. This was our first big adventure in China. It is just another way people live there. The streets are narrow (that is what hutong means) and you only see into a courtyard of homes if someone left the gate open. There are little stores set up to go daily to buy food (things are so small in size you don't have lots of storage place for foods). The kids play in the hutongs and older people set up a small table and chairs and play games like cards or Mahjongg that may include gambling (a big pastime). It was a fascinating ride.
In the hutongs lives a local legend. He really is very well known. He actually owns more than one of the dwellings in the hutongs so that the courtyard area is his. He is known as the 'Cricket Man'. We entered the hutong area he owns and lives in. Then we went to the one that serves as his main living area. Each home originally was one long room with a small bedroom attached. That is it folks. And there are four of these around a courtyard everyone shares.
The Cricket Man loves animals and his area is full of them. I'm guessing there are no building codes or home owners associations because he has built this large white building on top of his living room and it is a place all the pigeons come to dwell. Under this and around his home are cages with cockatiels and myna birds, etc.
All 38 of us, plus two guides packed into his living area. These two pictures are that living area. Remember, this is basically the entire home except where Preston is standing in the doorway at one end. That leads to the tiny bedroom.
Enter, the Cricket Man. He is full of enthusiasm and says a big, "Hello!" with a strong Chinese accent and a big wave of his arm. He should be on stage because he is very theatrical. He shares with us, in Chinese, that he is the Cricket Man. He pulls out a cricket paddle and asks us if that is what he is. Then he shares a picture of him on the cover of a well worn magazine and a certificate. My understanding is he made his name in the game of cricket but does not do that anymore. Now he is known for a different kind of cricket.
Then he displays a beautiful ceramic bowl. This is the home to his cricket. It is a fighting cricket. Yep, just like the black crickets in our yards. Only...ready for it...these crickets can be worth $10,000 each. That's right. A good fighting cricket, with a life span of 100 days, can be worth $10,000. Man!
It takes a lot of highly specialized gear to care for these crickets. In the Cricket Man's left hand is the bottom half of the bowl in which his fighting cricket resides. The box in his right hand is where he puts his crickets to mate. Claude and I are thinking Kentucky and racing horses at this point. Claude is getting visions of a new revenue stream in Sadieville made up of racing crickets. Oh My!!
This is the gear needed to raise, train, breed and fight crickets.
These teeny, tiny dishes are the food dish and water bowl for his fighting cricket. Yes, they do have a very special diet which he carefully makes and measures and feeds them. He may not eat well all the time but these crickets do eat very well.
The red box is where they fight. Not a huge arena but great for crickets. It can have netting put around it if several people want to watch and you need a larger area for them to view the fight. Otherwise it is just the red box and a few people around a table watching. That brush that has a few longer hairs is actually weasel whiskers put together to help train the cricket. He put a cricket on his hand and tickled it with the brush and the cricket raises his front leg to wave at you. I am not lying, saw it with my own eyes multiple times. Some of us spend years trying to train children and never get those results. He has 100 days of a cricket's life and gets it to wave at you. Amazing.
The piece de resistance was these two tiny wooden items. They are handmade wooden caskets for the prize crickets to be buried in. In this country where cremation is the law for humans, we make beautiful tiny caskets to bury our fighting crickets. Go figure. China is a fascinating place.
Here is the prize fighting cricket of this 100 days.
Sitting on Claude's hand is one of two huge grasshoppers the Cricket Man also keeps alive. He also has a glass fish tank with a big green iguana looking creature he took out and let us hold.
Our visit done, we thanked him for sharing all this with us with a little tip and strolled back out past the courtyard and through the gates to the hutong to find our rickshaw.
In the hurry to get in our rickshaw for the drive through the hutongs, we did not realize that each rickshaw had a number and we should get that number and ride in that rickshaw back to our bus. And, when we all got out to the hutong, there were clearly not as many rickshaws as it took to get us to the Cricket Man. We walked down the hutong a bit and eventually the rickshaws started to arrive. Claude and I couldn't remember what our driver even looked like...so we stood and waited. We were the next to last people to get a return rickshaw and, miraculously, our driver knew what we looked like. We hopped aboard and road back through the hutongs to our bus. What an interesting experience about another side of Chinese culture.
Our hotel in Beijing was right by Olympic Park. We were on our own for something for dinner. In addition, the option was available for those want it, to have a tailor come to your room that first night and measure you for a handmade suit. Claude was very interested in this and put himself down for that to happen. We were neither really very hungry. We could not find a shop in the hotel to sell us a soda and something to munch on. So we hurriedly caught up to the small number in our group that were being shown a shopping center that is underground in the Olympic Park area. It was really only about 4 or 5 big blocks away from our hotel. But when one is unfamiliar with distances and on a time crunch to be back in our room by 8:00pm, one tends to have concerns. We did find the shopping center and raced through it only to find another McDonald's. Hallelujah. We hurried in. I got fries and a soda and Claude got a little burger, fries and a soda. It was heavenly. Then we stopped at a kiosk and purchased a bottle of soda each and a munchie to take back to our room for another time. I found dried mangos that were simply divine.
We made it back to our room by 7:45pm and that was fortunate because the tailor people showed up a little early. Unbeknownst to us, our hotel room had a door bell! They came in with a big book of fabric possibilities and a measuring tape. Claude picked the fabric, the style and was measured and promptly ordered three suits. He had two at home that needed replaced and just wanted the third one.
And that, my friends, got us from Xi'an to Beijing and a new hotel for the next few nights. Whew!
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