Know where to shop
Too tired to write more words. Here’s something I prepared earlier (tomorrow: travelling with a tiny one: everything I’ve learned).
As I may have mentioned, CJ and Louisette and I have a wedding in Beijing (probably “have had” by the time I post this). I looked up the weekly forecast a little while before we left, and panicked. There was snow! There was “maximum 3 degrees”! Aieee!
Two Winters ago I finally said goodbye to the extremely dishevelled leather overcoat I’d worn for about ten years. Last Winter I mostly stayed in bed, moaning. So I had no giant, reassuring coat with which to face Winter – or Beijing – this year.
The day after looking up that forecast I went to an op shop. I found a ridiculously giant, heavy coat that comes down to my knees. It was suede, lined from neck to knee with real sheepskin. And it was $15. I win!
Here’s hoping Beijing doesn’t warm up too quickly. . .
PS I totally wore it to Lush. It was perfect.
Chillin’ in China: The Great Wall
The Great Wall is possibly my favourite tourist attraction in the world (as I think I said last time). Instead of wrecking the stunning mountain ranges of China, it frames them, draping across the landscape like an especially relaxed and sinuous cat. Last time we visited Badaling in the depths of Winter. This time we visited Wutianyu in Spring (including an awesome cable car ride up – and CJ took the toboggan down).
The above photo is for orientation. We began at the rectangular section on the left, and I walked through the first guard tower and down to the little platform (also on the left), then returned. CJ walked on with a surprisingly large portion of our group, and took this photo.
The above picture is taken looking away from the rebuilt section, into the overgrown ruins of the Wall. The below is just for fun.
The above photo shows a section that is by no means the steepest on the wall. That’s Bil in front.
And here are just two more photos – both breastfeeding.
To me, the slightly exasperated look on my face and the pointed toes say it all: breastfeeding is an awkward and uncomfortable thing, and although a part of me enjoys it I still dread feeding time. I wrote a few days ago that I’d like to breastfeed on the Great Wall. It struck me then and it strikes me now as a uniquely female way of marking territory. Breastfeeding is so hard and so humiliating and it takes away so much – but dammit, I’m doing it anyway. I own myself and I own my body and now I own China from the Great Wall to Kowloon Park.
I’m in lush again, laughing at a great song sung by a friend of Bil’s (“I cry and eat french fries simultaneously”). I love being here, especially with friends of Bil and Bonnie from all over the world – but the wedding is tomorrow and CJ and Louisette and I will soon be home. Home is always sweeter after being away, and best of all – no more strangers staring or photographing me while I’m trying to breastfeed perched on a shelf, hidden in back rooms, or sitting on major tourist sites.
Well, probably not.
Brillig Beijing: The Food
Beijing has an enormous variety of delicious international food. The only sad part is that unusual food tends to require a certain amount of careful questioning (“It’s a pickled WHAT?!?”) and attention, and a little bit of extra labour (rice with chopsticks, for example) which really makes things difficult while also attempting to feed an infant (and not flash my breasts as passers-by), who often has eating difficulties of her own. Generally CJ tries to keep up with the food, and to feed me and himself simultaneously. I get the general gist, at least.
Korean Barbeque (involving cooking on your own hot plate):
At/near a Yunan/Vietnamese restaurant in Hohan.
Naturally, since we were in Beijing, we made sure to have some Beijing-style duck pancakes. The sweet heaviness of the duck and the thick sauce contrasts perfectly with the wafer-thin pancakes and cucumber sticks or bean sprouts that go inside. We had Beijing Duck last time we were here, and we’ve been craving it ever since. And so the cycle of joy and pain begins again.
Brillig Beijing: Buffet Style
Even without those odd little multilingual/cultural moments (eg asking a concierge to call a taxi then waiting in consternation for twenty minutes as he vanished out the front door) hotel life would be a fascinating and exotic experience for me. The best part, inevitably, is the breakfast buffet (fairly necessary when one carts an infant to a foreign country). It’s exorbitantly priced, as one would expect, and has about a hundred different dishes. We park Louisette at a table (prepped for the inevitable midmeal nappy change) and take it in turns to get food.
If I was still young, and still had faith in my digestive system, I would perhaps challenge myself to try every single dish at least once. Here’s one good reason why not – that’s salted duck eggs on the left (fine), and fermented bean curd on the right (for breakfast).
One of the juices featured is tomato, and there is a suspicious stand near the juices that appears to contain most of the other fixings for a bloody mary (but who am I to judge?)
At the time of writing, I felt I’d had enough experimentation and should just give up. Apart from anything else, the pancake griddle is increasingly temperamental and my interactions with the staff there are getting more and more awkward. Also, there were no dim sum pork buns OR red bean paste buns today, which was very disappointing. So all I ate was some fresh bread and butter, a hash brown, scrambled eggs, a fried chicken-and-indeterminate-vegetable dumpling, orange juice, grape juice, and five pancakes with butter and maple syrup (and I sneakily added cheese to one of them, since they were cooked on the omelette stand after a mild altercation between the pancake and egg staff), some fresh berries (one of which I didn’t recognise). And all I stole was a bit more butter, and a knife slipped into Louisette’s bag.
What a poor effort. I’m sure I’ll do better tomorrow.
Temeraire: Empire of Ivory
This is book four of Novik’s brilliant series featuring intelligent battling dragons during the Napoleonic wars. Britain is in an extremely bad situation, as a flu-like epidemic is slowly but surely killing all their dragons – the entire Aerial Corps – and it is only a matter of time before Napoleon’s dragons take advantage and Britain is lost. The title dragon, Temeraire, and his captain, Will Laurence, can only watch in horror as many captain-dragon relationships go through torment and grief all around them.
When it becomes clear that they stumbled across a cure during their overland journey from China to Istanbul, they set off at once to Africa to find out exactly what it is that could save Britain’s dragon population before the secret is out and Britain is destroyed.
Africa, however, has problems of its own. Many have tried to explore the dark interior, and none have returned. On a mission to retrieve an unusual and specific foodstuff, Laurence and the other humans are captured and it soon becomes clear that the so-called feral dragons of the interior are not feral at all. They are part of an organised and intelligent force that has had enough of the British Empire, and plans to take back their slaves – and they’re perfectly happy to destroy the British Empire to do so.
Laurence himself is against slavery, but he also knows that the African force cannot be appeased – too many of their friends and relatives have long since been killed by sea voyages and mistreatment. There is no solution here.
This book ends on a moral climax, when Laurence’s honour is put to the greatest test ever.
Even Laurence finds it hard to be sympathetic to the British in this book, and the readers feel the embarrassed defensiveness with him. As readers, we are kept involved by the humans and dragons involved – the larger struggle is not so gripping.
I didn’t mention earlier, but Novik deserves credit for planning – small incidents from previous books turn out to be vital later on. And of course the characters never cease to involve the reader.
From here on, the books end in ways that would be unsatisfying to some readers. The main action is certainly complete, but the consequences (almost inevitably negative) for Laurence and Temeraire are left looming.
Rating: PG battle violence
Free sample (dragons as a whole REALLY like shiny things, and Iskierka is a somewhat immature fire-breather. In the military, you are financially rewarded for taking enemy ships):
Iskierka meanwhile took inspiration, and began to plot the acquisition of capital. “If I burn up a ship, is that good enough, or must I bring it back?” she demanded, and began her piratical career by presenting [her captain] with a small fishing-boat, the next morning, which she had picked up from Dover harbor during the night. “Well, you did not say it must be a FRENCH ship,” she said crossly, to their recriminations, and curled up to sulk.
Brillig Beijing: The Forbidden City and beyond
They don’t make megalomaniacs like they used to.
Be advised (particularly if you’ve recently had a child) that the Forbidden City is called a city for a reason. It is ENORMOUS. Luckily Bonnie is a smart tour guide and encouraged us to take the most direct possible route through. She also carried our nappy bag (while CJ carried Louisette and the baby bag), which meant I carried nothing at all – a cunning (and successful) plan to deal with a physically draining day.
We started off by walking across Tiananmen Square.
The worst part of the Forbidden City was the ridiculous number of people (this week has three public holidays in a row). The best part of the Forbidden City was the beautiful Imperial Gardens section at the end.
After going a-l-l the way through the city, we climbed the fairly steep hill behind it. The hill is called “The Mound” and is artificial. Apparently there’s someone else’s palace underneath. It’s actually not all that high, but because Beijing is so very flat there are long views in all directions – including directly back over the Forbidden City.
Baby Days
As you can tell, Louisette is so brilliant she likes to read over her dad’s shoulder.
Louisette’s feeding is changing: she’ll only breastfeed for about ten minutes (as opposed to up to 40 minutes pre-travel) and she’s having a bit more than half her food from formula – which does make things easier for me.
I’m prepping a “travelling with baby” blog for after I get back, which will have everything I’ve learnt from all this travel. In the meantime, here are two pictures of her getting burped (in the first, she’s just caught sight of herself in the hotel mirror).
The best thing about travelling with a baby is you always have a great source of entertainment.
Two day ago Louisette really impressed us: She initiated a game of peek-a-boo with her Dad. Not only did she pick the parent who plays peek-a-boo with her most often, but she demonstrated the initiative and self-awareness to know that another person wouldn’t see her face if she turned her head to hide in the side of her baby bag. Wow.
And here’s another breastfeeding photo – perched on a dusty shelf just outside the Forbidden City, with passers-by walking up and taking photos.
And here’s a pretty sunset from our hotel window, just because.
Brillig Beijing: Venturing Outside
It’s Spring in Beijing at the moment (or “dust season” if you prefer – Beijing is has a variety of hideous weather to suit all seasons), but given that Winter (or “death season” if you prefer) often sees temperatures of around minus 20 degrees Celsius, warming up takes a while – it’s roughly the equivalent of a Canberra Winter.
Today (well, 31 March) was super exciting, as it turned out. Louisette began holding onto her toys for the first time. I’d seen her grasping for her hanging toys (she loves hitting them – involving a great deal of adorable and random flailing with the occasional hit) so I placed the toy in her hand and watched in delight as she gripped it and shook it, making it rattle. This expression is halfway between delight and concentration.
Oh yeah, and we did a bit of China stuff too. We visited the (outside) venue where the wedding will take place – a beautiful sheltered courtyard with a Chinese-style pavilion.
And here’s the mandatory “street scene” shot for a new city (that’s the CCTV tower spire in the background).
I’ve had a simply brilliant time constantly using (and, frankly, needing to use) my pathetic scraps of Mandarin to get around – since Bil and Bonnie are a teensy bit busy with their impending nuptials. As an Australian, any bilingualism is pretty much a super power.
Tomorrow (ish): Baby in a bar.
Brillig Beijing: Baby in a Bar
Yep, we took Louisette to her first bar today. Here she is (and that’s her grandma – Bil and CJs mum – in the background):
And here’s me, five seconds ago:
I’m writing this blog on Sunday night, which is open mike night at Lush bar in Wudaoko. It’s my favourite bar in the world, because Bil and Rich (one of the owners, who co-hosts open mike nights with Bil) sing and play guitar in order to encourage others to do the same (a huge treat for me), and somehow the level of talent seems abnormally high. I always get really emotional – the guitars, the hookahs, the green walls, the sense of community – it all makes me get teary-eyed. Or maybe it’s because I always have a chocolate martini (when I was pregnant, I promised myself I’d come to Lush and have another – and I keep my promises).
Here’s Bil and Rich doing their thing:
And Bil, who to us will always be the main event at Lush:
Twas brillig: Beijing’s Slithy Toves*
On Thursday we packed our bags and set off for Beijing.
This is the view from our hotel
The hotel is very cool. It’s one of those ones with six different overpriced restaurants, about twelve staff in the foyer at all times, and so on. We had some classic Chinese-culture difficulties immediately upon our arrival. We ordered a cot months ago, and when we arrived (exhausted from a moderately epic journey featuring about two hours of postpartum/lack of sleep psychosis from yours truly) they informed us that they had no cot, had never had a cot, and would give us a free bed (yeah, thanks).
CJ and I realised that having the mattress on the floor would make it safer (and of course removing every scrap of extraneous bedding to lower the risk of SIDS) but poor CJ had to try to explain our logic to five different people who were obviously very disturbed by our peculiar parenting methods, and would we like more pillows?
In order to help the poor staff cope (SIDS-safe beds look incredibly barren if you don’t know about the decades of life-saving research) we decorated Louisette’s bed with a variety of pink items, and all the toys we brought with us. They did eventually take away the frame, and it’s a good thing too – last night she fell out of bed (no real problem, since she fell about three inches onto carpet, feet first). (And today one of Bonnie and Bil’s friends has brought us a portacot, so that’s good. Someone else we’ve never met has lent us a stroller.)
Another staff member is determined to practise his Australian colloquialisms on us – G’day mate, hooroo, etc. It adds that surreal element you’d miss if it wasn’t there during a trip to China.
And then we rested.
Poor Louisette gets sleepy, but she’s just too excited to stop looking around. Then she gets much, much more tired. Observe her expression as we tried to settle her into the room:
I was still having large-scale hallucinations, so I didn’t leave the hotel that whole first day. CJ was rather impressed by the local Wal-Mart (an exotic place, to Australians) and their pet section:
My hallucinations have now stopped (CJ and his parents took Louisette away for six hours during the day today so I could sleep), but I’m still having dizzy spells so I’m being careful.
Right now I’m using public internet at a bar, which sadly I won’t be visiting every day. I’ll be as consistent as I can with blogging, but this *IS* China, so no promises. If you’re dying to know I’m not dead, you can check Project 365 (under Louise Curtis) for one new photo a day.
*No, I don’t know what that means. Welcome to Beijing.
Felicity Banks 