Beer and Wine for My Friends... Snake Wine, if you will!

Hello from Beijing, We are getting packed-up after two very busy days touring Beijing. We started Day #2 here at the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel with a fairly typical western-style breakfast: Scrambled eggs, bacon, round hash brown things, Van Camp style pork and beans, canned fruit (pineapple and peaches) cantelope, honey dew and Dim Sum, a chinese-type filled dumpling with a mystery filling... one day it might have figs, the next day is mystery meat and mushroom - sometimes they were unfilled - looks like an over-inflated marshmallow. The coffee is served in small cups - black and strong.

Our first stop today was at a Traditional Chinese Medicine building where we were escorted to a classroom where a rather entertaining (so-called) physician gave us a lecture on the difference in medicine and health care between our western world and the Chinese world. (He claimed to have a medical degree from our country and from China, too.) He talked alot about how the Chinese go to their doctors for perserving their health, not like we do - only when we're sick or hurting. After his lecture, they brought in a huge number of folks to do a quick analysis on us (not me - I bombed-out to check my voicemail) to hopefully sell us on herbs and stuff from their pharmacy.

After that we went to Tianimin Square - unbelieveable in size. The Chinese are very proud of this place - which they should be, although they are rather closed-mouthed about discussing the uprising incident from the late 80's. We all got our picture taken in front of the big building with a picture of Chairman Mao. We are very impressed with how the Chinese folks revere their emporors and leaders.

Next, we walked and walked through the various sections of the Forbidden City, where generations of the Chinese emporers lived since the 1400. Huge numbers of people were here - the weather couldn't have been better - probably 80 degrees, no clouds or smog.

Our next stop today was at a family's house for Chinese-style home cooked lunch. I think it was good we didn't watch where and how they prepared the food. Then, a world famous guy gave us a demonstration of crickets and grasshoppers. Gambling is illegal in China, but somehow they bring together the very best fighting Crickets each October for what we might consider the "Super Bowl" of cricket fighting. He was very proud of the acclaim he has been given in the cricket fighting world, by showing is books, articles and magazines. (I'm glad none of us accidently stepped on this cricket, triggering some type of international incident.)

We then went to a pearl factory, where they provided us a demonstration on the difference between fresh-water and salt water pearls. Next comes the gift shop where they really try to sell us on buying expensive pearl jewelery - just like the day before at the jade factory.

We did get to drive-by the Olympic site - wished we could have toured that instead of all the other money-extracting tourist sites. We went on a $2.00, back-alley, ricksahaw ride. We had a Chinese style buffet dinner - nothing great, but better than last night. Quite frankly, I'm ready to stop at one of the 1000 McDonalds they have that many here in Beijing, for a Quarter pounder with cheese.

So from the title, you are probably wondering... beer and snake wine.... You don't drink the tap water - not even in the 5 Star Hotels... bottled water is probably okay and plentiful, but every place you go, you can buy Chinese beer for $1.00 per can, or $3.00 per big bottle - not too bad tasting, but more often than not, it will be room-temperature.

Last night at the massage, dinner and acrobatic show place, we encountered this big vessel with wine in it, along with some herbs and two (dead) snakes - we couldn't tell if the poor snakes had perished before they were place in the wine or sometime thereafter. Our hosts gave us a sample. It smelled horrible - yet tasted even worse (I have a picture of Kim to prove it). So today, while sitting at lunch, I looked on the table behind me and there was another big bottle of some homemade Chinese wine fermenting, with herbs, berrys and several, and I really mean several (dead) snakes contributing everything they had to the effort.

We get up early for an early trip to Shanhai. Beijing has been great, except for the snake wine!