Tag shopping

We’ve been looking all over for a place to buy a ferret. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, why buy a pet when you will just have to leave in a few years and possibly leave it behind. The quarentine process for brinign animals from China to the USA can’t be easy, and besides, ferrets are just glorified rats. Here’s my retort, sirs:

Ferrets are adorable, they do a warrior dance to signal when they want to play or fight that involves rolling around upside down and tossing their bodies side to side. If all warriors did that dance there would be no war… only massive laughing sessions followed by treks to the closest bar.

We looked at other animals as well. In 2006 we owned a rabbit in Beijing, but it quickly died. It was either sick when we purchased it from the street corner salesman who was also selling fish and toilet bowl cleaner, or he died as a result of running around or soon-to-be-condemmed apartment. He died so quickly after we got him that Mike seems to think it was his fault. I’ll go on record saying it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it did mean that this time around we didn’t want to try our luck again with a Beijing bunny.

Cats are the best option, in my opinion, but Mike is allergic. Lame. And although I’d love a dog, how could I possibly part with that or give it away whenever I left Beijing? Ideally, the most generic and cliche animals are actually the best because they interact with humans on a high level and when guests come over they are not terrified, a they might be if a ferret ran by unannounced.

To check out our options, we went to the Beijing Guanyuan Market – The Fish, Bird and Insect Market. Obviously insects and fish were out of the question (boring, loud, boring, ugly, etc…), which left birds. I’d be happy to get a bird actually, but one that flies around and is interactive, not one of the irritating and loud ones that is scared of humans. I had a cockatiel in middle school that would fly around and land on people’s heads and eat seeds out of your mouth. I miss him, his name was Fido.

Anyways, fish and bugs were out, and the birds were mostly tiny and overcrowded, with 10-20 birds in a tiny cage meant for one animal. We also saw cats, kittens mostly, in tiny cages meant for rabbits and rabbits in cages meant for rats and so on. Only the ferrets had large cages, and they wanted over $500  USD for one ferret. We really wanted to get one, but we didn’t want to party with $500 to do so. To get to the market if you happen to be in Beijing, take the subway to Fuchengmen (line 2), take exit B and head North, the market is on the right (East) hand side of the road, just inside the Second Ring Road. It is in an old hutong, so you can walk around the maze and find food, rabbits, insects, more food, and clothing.  A nice but not appetizing combo.

Arriving as we did in the middle of the night we had an epic sense of adventure attached to our return to China. Adding to that feeling was the fact that several ralliers were to be in the city for the next week. We got in touch with them, though they were eager to see the sights (Great Wall of China, Forbidden City and the obvious tourist stuff). We met up and went shopping with Justin, from Seattle, and two American boys from Oklahoma named Cody and Andrew. Chris, the Irishman that was a member of our Mongolian convoy, was also in town. We met and shopped, ate and generally explored New Beijing. We moved into the same hostel so we could occupy our evenings in the hostel dining hall playing jenga and smoking apple-flwvored hookahs.

Much has changed in China’s capital city since we last lived here in 2006. The Olympics, which we visited in 2008, were a huge factor. But general improvements around the city have made Beijing the figurative and literal capital. We lived in Haidian, a north-western fringe area where the universities are. We taught English at a private company there and lived in a tiny apartment that cost less than 2000RMB a month for the company to maintain. In winter, there was no heat and no air in summer. We had a pet rabbit. This time we were staying in the eastern-central area of Beijing, right in the center of the expat community. We were looking for an apartment in this area, where prices have risen around 2000 per apartment since 2006. Food, living costs, entertainment costs all went up, but an exploration of the Beijing expat job market revealed that salaries haven’t really done likewise.

More importantly, the changes were positive, obvious and refreshing. The streets are much cleaner and there is even a street-sweeping machine that goes down the main roads daily. The trash is picked up daily, and efficiently. Shopping centers are more organized, isles are wider and the people pushing carts down them are polite and smiling. The general dislike of foreigners seems to have abated. Likewise, most foreigners we saw in the first few days in Beijing were fluent in Chinese. In 2006 a fluent foreigner was an extremely rare thing. Now, 4 years later, an incompetent foreigner with a Beijing zip code is more rare.

We spent the week hitting Beijing’s highlights, souvenir shopping with the ralliers, and enjoying our relaxing post-rally down time. Having been in a cramped, tiny, dusty car for the past month, it was a relaxing change of pace.

Come back soon to read about apartment and job hunting in Beijing, as well as the trials and tribulations of dealing with a corrupt realtor.

Island Flavor

Our cruise ship stopped in Funchal Island, owned by Portugal, which is a small island filled with wealth people, everything has to be imported, and nothing but bananas is produced there. The ship stops at this particular island because it has extensive upper-scale shopping and long tours around the island’s natural beauty. For the not-so-wealth (aka: us) the island offers surprisingly little. You can stroll up and down the streets window shopping at stores you’ll never be able to afford, or you can waltz into the magnificent churches to gawk at the gold-plated everything.

We chose to head to the local fish and flower market, where we watched elderly men gut and skin fish before chopping them into bits for waiting customers. Eels, shark and various other strange under-water critters materialized from under tables to be dissected

like bizarre outer-space science experiments. We watched until bile began to rise from the smell and sight of gutted mystery critters, and then moved on to the flower market, which had a much better smell. Some of the tropical flowers were more beautiful and colorful than anything I imagined existed on this planet.

Our stay on the island was brief, but it is a place we highly recommend if you have: A) money; B) time, and; C) a love of shopping.

Our bus ride was somewhat of a highlight as far as nigh transportation goes. We were on the top floor of a double-decker bus, in the very front seats. This gave us an amazing, panoramic view of Serbia as we departed. We were exhausted from sleeping on the train the night before, and walking around the entire day. Once on the bus we stretched out and fell promptly asleep.

I don’t know what time it was when I heard a terrifying sound and awoke with such a start I slipped right out of my bus seat and onto the floor! I looked around but everyone else was sleeping soundly. Just as I climbed back into my seat I heard it again. It sounded like glass shattering, and when I looked up I realized that our double-decker was skidding down a mountain road completely covered in snow and ice! The sound I heard was the sound of ice-covered evergreen branches smacking into the windshield directly above my head!

I sat awake with my face inches from the glass willing the bus not to slide into the ravine on our right, or into the mountain on our left. Apparently intense concentration on a goal like that works, because I lived to tell the harrowing tale. I did not realize that there would be snow in Bosnia & Hercegovina, and the mere sight of it, as beautiful as it was, was a bit of a shock.

We got off the bus at 5:30am and discovered that it had deposited its human cargo at a station 10k from town. At 5:30 not a lot is open, so we could not change our currency. We walked around in the snow and slush and eventually found a place that had an ATM, where we got enough out to last a day. We walked around another half hour before we found the bus stop, and waited another half hour for the bus. By now my shoes, which I bought in China and have been falling apart ever since, were soaked through and my toes were as numb as if they didn’t exist. We sat shivering on the bus as it filled with commuters on their way to work.

We jumped off the bus in Old Town Sarajevo, which showed little signs of earlier conflicts. We had expected a city that was brand new, having been entirely rebuilt since the war, but what we found was a delightful old town with beautiful churches, cobblestone lanes filled with shops and cafes, and a throng of pleasant people bustling about their business. We checked into a hostel for 5 Euro a night and took showers. With two full nights sleeping on buses and trains, and walking in the rain and snow, we were quite a pathetic site to behold! The shower, even on its coldest setting, burned my freezing feet until they adjusted to normal temperatures again. I huddled into several blankets in my bunk until I felt I had defrosted, and then put on nearly every item of clothing in my backpack.

Our first order of business in Sarajevo was to find me a new pair of shoes, preferably something water resistant this time! We walked around Old Town, which was full of designer clothing and brand-named goodies, but nothing in our price range. At the river, however, we found a second-hand store where a friendly local lady helped me try on several pairs of winter shoes. I eventually settled on a pair and we went back to the hostel so I could change into dry shoes. Just in case they were penetrated with snow or slush, I put plastic bags on over my socks to keep my poor feet dry.

Sarajevo was my favorite city since leaving Shanghai. It was beautiful, the locals were friendly and helpful, and it had all the efficiencies of the western world. The river that bisects the city gives it an old fashioned feel while the modernity of the shops makes you remember you are in the 21st century.

The history of the city is still alive. The bridge corner where the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated is well preserved, and a museum to the moment has been erected on the corner showing a film recreation of the exact moment Gavrilo Princip stepped out of the crowd and shot the Archduke and his wife.

We left Sarajevo after two days of restful enjoyment and ongoing history lessons, and wished we could have stayed longer if time and money had permitted.