Day 28: Long Duck Dong

DID: Had our long-awaited Peking Duck experience (see ATE).  Then headed for Ti’anamen Square and the Forbidden City. Only meant to spend an hour or so but the paparazzi were really aggressive today. Rhys eventually took a nap just to escape the flashbulbs, leaving poor Gavin doubly exposed. I can’t figure out why everyone is so intrigued by little white kids! Took nearly 3 hours to get through the city.

Then headed for the Olympic Park. Smog was so thick we couldn’t see the birds nest until we were practically on top of it. Paparazzi here too. This is really unbelievable.

The Olympic Park is gorgeous. I had no idea from watching on tv that the bird’s nest was steel-colored – it’s the lighting that makes it look like wood. Very clever! Slight disappointment that the cube was only lit up in blue, not changing colors, but other than that very happy. Park was surprisingly crowded given none of the venues were open and nothing going on. Shocked that the only elevator out of the station was the single-user kind that attaches to a railing next to the steps. I can’t imagine that the Paralympic Committee would not have a design requirement for proper elevators at all stations on the park.

ATE: Breakfast: Buffet @ the hotel. Took us a day to realize that it’s included in our room rate – oops! Nice combo of eastern-western favorites. Gavin enjoyed the cheerios, Jason liked the fried egg noodles.

Lunch: Peking Duck at Da Dong. All along in Beijing we’ve felt like the table to chair height ratio is different (we’ve been sitting much lower than we’re used to). We’ve been chalking it up to the fact that without the need for leverage over a fork and knife, combined with the bowl-to-mouth shoveling that tends to happen with chopsticks, perhaps this was intentional. At Da Dong, they take this to a whole new level. Everything is supersized. The smallest tables seat 6, most of the tables seat 8 or more. My feet couldn’t touch the ground from the chair, and I also couldn’t reach across the table to help Rhys with his food. The menu made a menu from the Cheesecake Factory look simple.  It took him literally half an hour to read the menu, but somehow Jason managed to order a lovely meal. Highlights were the duck skins dipped in sugar (Rhys and Gavin ate it like candy) and crispy prawns dipped in mayo.

Dinner: Dim Sum at a huge Cantonese restaurant near the Yonghegong Lama Temple subway station. Had all the standard favorites, prawn dumplings, pork dumplings, spring rolls, plus a few new ones. Overall very enjoyable but not in the same league (either in flavor or in price) with Lei Garden.