It was an excellent food-and-walking day. Google Maps clocks us at some 13 km, hardly hastily executed at some 6 hours, and in any event involving many stops, detours, tea and food purchases, bathroom breaks, and window-shopping interludes. Starting on a familiar route, we got Sean a chicken-and-potato bing; shortly we detoured for convenience-store pudding.

I don’t remember if I have ever before specifically desired Chinese pudding—more jelly-like than the American version—but once my wish was verbalized Sean was a man on a mission. In truth, the convenience-store pudding wasn’t quite what I had in mind, so we followed it up with a second pudding event later on. That second event took place at iTea at the mall at Wangfujing and went by the name Triple Pudding, if I recall correctly. It was guinea pig-colored, and it tasted like coconut, chocolate, and pseudo-coffee in a caramel-y sauce and was served as a beverage with a straw. Perfect.

The Wangfujing Oriental Plaza is a very mally-y mall, and we’ve done it before; no surprises there. We checked out the movie theater—I had previously noted that it had on offer an English-language film called the Echelon Conspiracy, which we are skeptical is marketed in the States. Something to look into, but we decided to give it a miss for today. We window-shopped at jewelry and bag stores, not because we need anything in particular, but just for fun…I have in mind a white patent leather handbag, and am in 0 hurry to find it. The hunt is more fun than actually owning it would be, unless—perhaps—someday…I can find that elusive Perfect One. As an additional benefit, the mall offered some relief from the area’s oppressive pollen. There’s something in the air right now to which I am miserably allergic. I’m going through a box of Kleenex a day. Gross-ba.

After heading back out into the humid summer air, we got a grilled corn, which Sean agrees is superior in texture to the simple boiled one, and watched and mingled with the crowds. We stopped to thoroughly examine a group that turned out to be comprised of international MBA students from Carlson, apparently visiting the Cheung Kong business school. I refrained from busting out the camera for them, but we were far from the only gawkers. In fairness, it took them a decently long time for them to get organized on some office building steps and figure out how to display their banner so their cameraman had a shot at catching it in the frame. I did stop to take a picture of a World Cup ad, though, which features fake crowds into which aisles have been blatantly interlaid, with the intention of making it look like a stadium event. Bwhahahahah. Fail.

In good time we found ourselves out of the crowded mall-and-office area and following a long park which runs between the two sides of a divided boulevard. The sunlight was golden. The trees looked almost tropical, and so many roses and other flowers had been planted (especially red and yellow ones) as to make me feel like I was back on campus. Floofy dogs also abounded, and we observed that the volume of the floof on the dog in the tricycle basket is proportional to the crappiness of the tricycle and the decrepitude of the adoring Chinese man pedaling it. As Sean often observes, this country is weird. We also saw some old men flying kites, which were pretty damn far away, high in the sky. How did they do that?

Night fell, and we reached Nanluoguxiang, tourist alley of tourist alleys. 15 kuai “mojitos” beckoned, and although I find it difficult to believe they actually contained alcohol, they were pleasant and sweet and welcome in the warm night. Further walks took us past adorable kittens (“Buy a shirt and get a kitten free!”) and the stand where they sell mix music. A police van came by the DJ just as we did; poof, and the music was off, the player hidden, and the crowd innocent. Two minutes later and it was all back to normal; we purchased three nameless CDs, hoped for the best and set off again home.

It was a good day, and a relaxed one. I get the feeling my relaxation is drawing to a close for a good while; June may be the end of it, and I’m cherishing this free-wheeling Beijingness while I can.

Either way. I am pleased with Sean’s memory-recording entries; in fact, I think both he and I benefit greatly from his blogging in general. I feel a little guilty taking from him in this way, without giving much back.

I skipped my run yesterday and today; it is raining, and the air is smoggy. Sean and I did a bit of walking (and have been doing so regularly as he’s been available more lately), and when I got home I wanted to do some project organization–and screwing around on the net–and I wanted to drink tea and be warm and dry. We have had a couple of excellent outings lately, seeing Alice in Wonderland at Wangfujing and having our first Chinese sushi experience in the mall there, and I thoroughly enjoyed today’s sushi venture at Sushi Express (we’ll be going back, for sure). I should note that Sean doesn’t eat sushi, and he finds things to eat at these places so I can be happy. Such giving does not run rampant in the general male population, I fear.

Home is still where I get stuff done in China, though. I’m planning a study blog, intended to supplant my diary as a record for my response to things I read, especially about business and about China. I’m also making some effort to organize my study of Chinese and of characters, and to organize information I have about businesses in which I am, however indirectly, involved. I’m also thinking about (and, mostly haphazardly, researching) degrees, schools, and jobs. I’m still throwing around a lot of ideas, and trying not to be too influenced by the opinions of others. In addition, right now I have a lot more information about Tsinghua than BiMBA, and I cannot weigh the programs against each other without correcting the imbalance.

Still, I feel like a lot of effort is reaching its conclusion, and I’m satisfied to be planning for the next segment. Hopefully I’ll hear back from business schools in the next couple of weeks. In an ideal world, I’ll hear something about scholarships, too, but I don’t really expect to until summer (and even then, I need to be really lucky!). These days I need to plan my summer studies, and any business/law projects for the summer as well. I need to buy plane tickets. In April, I’ll go back to the States for a bit. I’m looking forward to executing the next round of plans upon my return to China.

I’m excited about a few different things I’m working on, and I have fantasies about how everything might turn out. I suggested to Sean that we record what we think life might be like a year from today, even in a few different versions. Still, sometimes I feel discouraged. So much is still uncertain, and sometimes I feel like I have little to show for the six months I’ve been in China. I also worry about Sean being happy here. He hasn’t yet secured employment that he likes. I’ve been surprised that not having a steady job hasn’t bothered me lately; I thought it would (admittedly, it did a few months ago, though I really haven’t regretted leaving the firm). Maybe I’ve matured past that point, maybe I worked enough at the firm to make up for a few months of relative idleness, or maybe all this stuff I’ve been messing around with has been an adequate substitute. Possibly the fact that I have a long-term plan has trumped most of my discomfort with lack of a short-term one. I can come up with a dozen more reasons, too, but regardless, my happiness has been much more affected by my worry about Sean.

The other side of town

• 200 g (.46 lbs) extra-lean hamburger patty, pre-formed, individually-wrapped
• 1 sesame bun, preferably frozen
• Shredded white “cheese”
• “Pickles,” otherwise known as ZhaCai, literally “Pressed Vegetables” (no dill was harmed in the making of this pickle)
• Garnish: 1 lettuce leaf, sliced tomatoes and onions
• Seasoning: Salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, red cooking wine, cooking oil

Equipment:

• Spatula
• Saute pan and lid
• Stove
• Microwave
• Pizza oven

Directions:

• Season both sides of patty with liberal amounts of Seasoning
• Put patty in saute pan on high heat
• Cover with lid to cook
• When bottom looks “done,” flip, cover, and repeat
• When both sides look “done,” put in microwave for 1-2 minutes at your discretion
• Put back in saute pan to cook away any excess liquids that may have escaped while microwaving
• At this point, put sesame bun into pizza oven to defrost/toast
• Sprinkle top of patty lightly with “cheese,” then put into pizza oven to melt
• Wait 2 minutes for everything to finish in the pizza oven
• Place patty between sesame bun, top with Garnish, and you’re done!

To serve:

• Prepare a small pile of deep-fried, frozen french fries
• Create an elaborately European, but small, side salad, complete with vegetable “towers” and hash-patterned drizzles of dressing
• Arrange everything delicately in quadrants on a square plate
• Provide an individual crock of ketchup

Promise: This will NOT be how I serve my new hamburgers at Connections Bar & Grill. I just wanted to show just how far we’ve come and in such a short time.

So I now own a restaurant! I am the general manager, and soon to be proper 25% owner. Or at least, all of this is pending actual finalization but for all intents and purposes I’m already doing the work and have been for no pay for some time. I’d like to think that I’m properly incentivized (huh…Firefox doesn’t think that’s a real word?) and so all my efforts, plus so much more effort in the future, will be worth it.

No matter what though, it is all terribly exciting. Imagining the renovations, because we’re changing the layout and the kitchen, imagining the new menu. Basically, this restaurant was already my father’s, but it’s not been doing too well per se, and my cousin, the previous general manager, wanted to change it to a YuNan Hot Pot franchise.

Hot pot for those of you not in the know is like Japanese shabu-shabu. In its simplest form: there’s a big pot of boiling water that you put vegetables and meats into to cook then eat. It’s really popular in China, among the Chinese, and especially in winter when it’s cold out. I’m not that into it myself though.

The restaurant was also supposed to be a Western restaurant, and the other shareholders didn’t want to move away from that idea. The new shareholders, plus myself, wanted to focus our direction. Right now, it’s like we’re a European restaurant, serving really fancy looking and sounding things like ox tongue salad and cylindrical potato salad with curry powder. All good in and of itself, I think since I’ve never had the desire to actually try it, but nothing out of the ordinary and just not good enough to draw the real fancy European crowd.

So we’re shifting focus. We want the tourists. We want the expats (the poor ones ;) ). We want the foreigners who are missing a good, old fashioned, American breakfast, pancakes and waffles and all, because you can’t get those in China! So all day breakfast, really good burgers and pizza, and apple pie! And beer, lots of beer, in bottles and on tap, and a soda fountain, and liquor…All the things that make diners in the States so good.

We’re working on the new layout right now, because we’re getting booths and opening up the new dining room in the back.

We’re working on the kitchen because they need more griddle space for the burgers and breakfast foods.

We’re finalizing the new menu (mostly me…) so we’re coming up with food we want to serve and how to cook it. Lucky me gets to cook all these things for the first time next week to a panel of tasters as well. This also means we’re setting up new suppliers.

We’re also getting new waitstaff and new cooks. It’s like starting complete anew, a clean slate. We’re writing hygiene regulations, I’m writing up employee operational procedures, I’ll need to write up the new recipes, I’m writing up employee incentives and review policies, we’re coming up with a whole new marketing strategy. It’s a big project, but I have high hopes.

My hopes and estimates, assuming we’re a raving success, which of course we will be, will have us making 3 million RMB a year, minus 50% to costs, split 4 ways.

I’m excited, scared, stressed, pressured. I’m anticipating having to work 100 hour weeks to get this thing off the ground, because we’re starting with a very skeleton crew, only 2 waitstaff and 2 cooks, plus me. But it will be worth it, I keep telling myself. No matter what it’ll be an experience.

Here’s the menu, as finalized as of two days ago :)

Breakfast

Breakfasts include one cup of coffee or choice of one juice
Toast comes with: Butter and a selection of Jam
Cheese varieties include choice of American, Swiss, Cheddar, or Mozzarella
Toppings for Pancakes, Waffles, and French Toast: Syrup, Fresh Fruit of the Day (e.g. Strawberries, Blueberries, Bananas), Chocolate Chips, Whipped Cream

Simple 1 – Two Eggs and Toast
Simple 2 – French Toast or Pancakes or Waffle
Chef’s Choice – Two Eggs, Two Pancakes, Two Strips of Bacon and a Sausage Patty
French Toast Combo – French Toast with Two Eggs and Your Choice of Ham, Bacon or Sausage
Three Egg Omelet – Choose any three of Cheese, Bacon, Ham, Mushroom, Spinach, Broccoli, Chile or Bell Peppers, Olives
Juices, Tea (refillable), Milk and Coffee (refillable) – Apple, Orange, Grapefruit, Pineapple, Tomato
Cereal and Milk

Create Your Own
Mix and Match Any Three – Bacon, Ham, Link Sausage, Sausage Patty, Eggs, Cereal, Grits, Fruit, Home Fries, toast, hash browns

Beverages

Beer On Top: Heineken, Yanjing, Tsingtao, Guiness
Juices, Tea and Coffee:
Apple, Orange, Grapefruit, Pineapple, Tomato
American Style Coffee; Espresso
Lipton, Oolong, Lapsang Suchong, Earl Grey
Full Bar

Burgers

All burgers come with French Fries
Double the patty for 10 RMB
Veggie or Mutton patty available for free

Chiliburger: Cheddar Cheese, Beef Or Vegetarian Chili
Classic Cheeseburger: American Cheese, Pickles, Onions, Lettuce, Tomato, Ketchup, Mustard, Mayonnaise
Hawaiian Burger: Mozzarella Cheese, Pineapple, Lettuce, Teriyaki Sauce
Italian Burger: Mozzarella Cheese, Marinara Sauce, Basil, served on Garlic Toast
Mexican Burger: Cheddar Cheese, House Special Hot Sauce, Lettuce, Cilantro, Sour Cream, Pico De Gallo, Chili Peppers

Create Your Own
Bun: Sesame seed hamburger bun
Patties: All-beef, veggie, mutton
Cheese: American, cheddar, Mozzarella
Sauces: Ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, 1000 Island, ranch, House Special hot sauce, salsa, marinara sauce, beef/vegetarian chili, sour cream, Pico de Gallo, teriyaki
Toppings: Lettuce, tomato, onions, cilantro, pickles, sweet relish, grilled onions, grilled bell peppers, sautéed mushrooms, chili peppers, pineapple, bacon, fried egg

Pizza

All pizzas come with tomato sauce base and mozzarella cheese, unless otherwise noted or created by yourself

Supreme – Onions, Bell Peppers, Black Olives, Sliced Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Pepperoni, Sausage
All Meat – Pepperoni, Sausage, Bacon, Ham
Vegetarian – Onions, Bell Peppers, Black Olives, Sliced Tomatoes, Mushrooms
Hawaiian – Teriyaki Sauce, Ham, Pineapple
Mexican: Cheddar Cheese, Chicken, House Special Hot Sauce and Salsa, Pico de Gallo, Cilantro, Chili Peppers
Margherita: Olive Oil, Fresh Basil, Sliced Tomatoes

Create Your Own:
Cheese: Mozzarella, Cheddar, Parmesan, Swiss, Stilton
Sauce: Tomato, Teriyaki, House Special Hot sauce, Alfredo, Olive Oil
Vegetables: Onions, Bell Peppers, Black Olives, Sliced Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Pineapple, Spinach, Chili Peppers, House Special Salsa, Pico de Gallo, Italian Seasoning
Meat: Pepperoni, Sausage, Bacon, Ham

Sides
Mozzarella Sticks: Marinara sauce dip
French Fries
Side Salad
Cup of Chili: Beef or Vegetarian
Chips and Salsa: House Special and Pico de Gallo
Spaghetti: Bolognese or Vegetarian Marinara Sauce
Soup of the Day, served with French bread

Breakfast Sides
2 eggs, any style
2 strips of bacon
2 sausage links or patties
2 pancakes
1 waffle
1 order of French toast
Hash browns
Home Fries
Toast
Yogurt

Sweet Things
Apple Pie
Date Squares / Apple Bars
Ice Cream
Fruit Platter

And for the sake of creating the necessary tags, the other businesses we’re involved in are:

FTC Art/Gen-Next
PDL
FTC

I know, the original point was for convenience, same with the cell phone (I have to text “YE” to some number to check the balance, then call some other number to refill it using a card I buy from a newspaper stand…?…), but I’m finding it to all just actually be a complete pain! Why can’t I give them my bank account, and they’ll just bill me, like it is in EVERY other civilized country that I’ve been in? I don’t want to have to go out and make sure I fill my cards, of which I’m going to have many, and make sure to swipe it in front of the electric meter or I’ll have my power turned off. Just take my stupid money, please!

So that was the rant against prepaid stuff. Just as a point then, in case anybody is reading this…

Gas and electric utilities are prepaid, you’ll see a meter that indicates how many “units” you have left at the meter. If you’re low, below 200 for electric, I don’t know what for gas, you can swipe your card at it and it’ll refill it. You get this card from I don’t know where, and you refill it at a bank. It was much easier in the States when they just took money out of my checking account.

Cell phones you can buy from any China Mobile store, and you can pick the type of plan you want. There are two kinds of prepaid, plus one that’s more traditional and akin to the contract plans in the states. You refill your prepaid phones using cards you buy from newspaper stands and the likes. There’s a scratch off spot that’ll have a special password code that you enter when you call some number from your phone and this’ll add the balance.

Only locals, meaning people with ID cards, can sign up for telephone and DSL service. There’s a form in triplicate that needs to be filled in, all in Chinese, then you take it to a guy behind a teller and they give you what you want. Since it’s DSL, and DSL only, you’re bandwidth is limited by the type of line that’s in place, and since my current apartment, great though it is, is in a very old part of town, my available speeds are limited by the old lines. Of course, I can shell out to replace the ENTIRE block’s lines, but that’s a whole other can of beans… The real problem with this method of signing up for phone and DSL service is that if you want to make any changes to it, you need to bring along the original person that registered it for you. So when we first got to the apartment, the service had lapsed for some reason because somebody wasn’t paying it for some reason and I had no idea who it was so when I went to the telephone bureau or whatever it was called with my cousin to try to sort it out and get our service reinstated, they couldn’t do anything because we needed the original person who registered it there with us, and of course, we have no idea who that is! Apparently, if we were unlucky, they wouldn’t have been able to set up service without this “person” there. So I spent a harrowing afternoon and much time on the phone trying to track down who the original person was, and if they’d be able to come with me to the telephone bureau to sort things out. Obviously, we were lucky, and that particular branch of bureaucracy decided to ignore the original person. But still, it’s pretty annoying.

And now the phone doesn’t work for some reason even though I’m sure it was working when the people came to install my service and I had originally thought that since there was a slot for batteries and no batteries that getting batteries would fix it but it didn’t and now I have no idea what’s wrong with it and I just want a landline phone because I’m paying for it damnit and it’s free to receive phone calls so it’s cheaper than my cell phone to use if someone’s calling me and now my father thinks it’s the new DSL line that killed it and if that’s the case, then I have no idea what to do…

So the word of the day is…CONVOLUTED!

But as the title says, EVERYTHING’S GOOD!

Everything is actually so very good, it’s absolutely great. It’s been three weeks, and even longer soon and we’ll be celebrating our one month anniversary of moving to China. Impressive how quickly the time has flown.

Perhaps our greatest triumph of recent note is acquisition of cheap produce. And I mean CHEAP. For the equivalent of $1.50, we purchased 3 lbs of bok choy, a bulb of garlic, a huge thing of ginger, one whole leek, 1.5 lbs of spinach, 5 tomatoes, and 1 head of napa cabbage. For the equivalent of 20 cents, we bought a block of fresh tofu. We also got 6 eggs, and two apples, spending in totality less than 3 dollars. And everything’s fresh. We had originally be stymied when it came to purchasing produce because, I suspect, we live so close to the center of town, where it’s very much a tourist part of town, so the usual on the street vendors of vegetables are lacking. So I did some exploration, clued in by some sightings of produce that Maria had this morning on her run, found that what she saw was actually people selling non-edible plants, wandered around randomly some, and came upon this trove of edible greenery, tucked away in some completely out of the way alley.

So that’s part of the everything’s good.

Another part of what’s good, though this may be more neutral in its respects, are all the “businesses” we’re involved in, and the quotes are there to indicate some vacillating on my part in declaring these are viable, things that I want to be involved with businesses, or “head in the clouds” type things that may be best touched with a ten feet stick.

But, to count, we are, I am, Maria may be or is (I’m lumping things together):

1) Becoming part owners of a Western style restaurant, of which I will be the general manager of. This restaurant will need to be renovated and retrofitted from its original inception into an “All Day Breakfast” and “Burgers and Pies” place, with alcohol. I have a plan to make this a 2 million yuan a year business (that’s 300K US) and to have it be self sustaining within a year so that I can move on to more important things, like expanding the restaurant onto the GORGEOUS roof that we have open to us.

2) Creating a online gallery and silent bidding system for the world at large to purchase “Young, Urban, Beijing” original art created by the born in the post 1980s crowd.

3) A good bit of fund raising, apparently…

4) Something to do with Swiss helicopters…?

5) Something to do with proteins…

6) Editing essays and/or teaching Legal English.

Obviously, some of these have more well formulated actual ideas than others. It’s all a lot of fun, but quite busy heh.

Um, but everything is good, and it’s late, and I can’t sleep, but I really should, and my schedule’s all messed up but I intend to fix it, if I have to stay up all night I will fix it. The idea being, I will get up tomorrow, if I sleep, and stay up all day, and I’ll be right as rain again.

Speaking of rain, the weather’s been lovely here! Perfect Fall, actually, something I realize I’ve not seen in a while.

We’ve now secured an apartment–well, secured, at least in some sense. The rent is already high and we’ve sort-of been warned that the landlady may increase it. The place is quite nice, however, and I can’t wait to have my own collection of points in the 3-d coordinate plane. Everyone here has been wonderful, and at least Sean’s grandmother will be sad that we won’t be around as much, but I will be happier once I have my own desk, tea paraphernalia, and place to put my stinky running clothes. We will hopefully be moving on Sunday.

I registered for the GMAT and have only a few weeks to study. I am also working on getting the recommendation letter templates out. Chinese schools are *so* not on a schedule–except, apparently, as regards receiving my completed application. One has posted the 2010 app; the other, not so much. As National Holiday draws to a close, however, I’m hoping they’ll be more responsive.

I have also lately learned that the picture on the outside of the package does not necessarily reflect the contents. I bought a package of tasty dried fruits (labeled plums…maybe). Although I am in no way dissatisfied with the contents, I was mildly surprised by them.  These photos are the outside and the inside. I am likely to pursue a new package of these, as I’ve eaten almost all of them.

Package

Contents. Tasty, but not as advertised.

The weather has been intermittently astonishingly beautiful, but it is getting cold. I anticipate that we will need to use a heater soon. I understand that it doesn’t get as cold here as, say, Boston, but that it will approach freezing. I am also becoming impatient to explore more, especially on my own, and am finding my lack of language skills quite limiting. This is not surprising, and I believe that as the National Holiday finishes up–and I have my own apartment — I can get the language-learning show on the road. *Can’t wait to unpack.*

I signed up for my first race in Beijing, or outside it–only a 10k, but since registration for the Beijing Half-Marathon is closed, I’ll take what I can get. I also posted on the Beijinger website, asking for gym recommendations and info on running clubs. I’m not optimistic anyone will have anything useful to say, but let’s see what fish this net ensnares.