The Far East: Day 3

I slept very well on Friday night, sleeping for nearly twelve hours. Not all that surprising given I'd been up for 31 hours. I had some breakfast and got a shower, and then found Iwas pretty much ready for lunch - the jetlag seems to have made me quite hungry. So I blogged a little and got a sandwich.

Catherine had some work to finish off, so Martyn and I headed out. Martyn needed to go to the tailors to get a suit fitted, so we did that before heading to the Sanlitun area of Beijing (pronounced Sanliter, thanks to the Beijing accent). 

Sanlitun is one of the main areas in which expats live, and has a number of embassies nearby. There are a large number of Western shops, such as United Colours of Benetton. Martyn and I settled down for a couple of hours with some drinks and had a long chat, before Catherine joined us and we went for dinner.

Catherine and Martyn decided to give me a baptism of fire and take me to a proper Chinese restaurant. 'Chinese' food as eaten in the UK simply isn't what the Chinese eat. There are so many regional varieties of food that even attempting to try them all could keep you here for a year.

While I went to the bathroom, they ordered a variety of dishes, which we all shared. There were lamb skewers, very hot chicken wings, something that looked like pizza but was really bread in a bowl of tomato sauce and lamb pieces, and bite-size chicken pieces with leeks and chillies. My personal favourite was a combination of pancake pieces and cabbage, that looked not dissimilar to a bowl of fried onion, but which tasted nice without being overpowering; it was very moreish.

The trouble with sharing food is that you don't get it in portion-sized plates, so you're never quite sure of how much you've eaten. As it was I ate a fair amount, though I could probably have eaten more.

Unfortunately I'm still quite jetlagged as I write this on Sunday morning: I don't feel particularly tired, I just feel a bit disoriented, and a bit more hungry than normal. I'm sure it'll wear off soon.

I've not got much planned for today (i.e. Sunday, aka Day 4), but tomorrow I plan to head into Beijing city centre and see some of the sights like Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Lastly, a correction to Day 2: Beijing terminal 3 is the second biggest terminal, but the biggest is Dubai T3, not Heathrow T5. In fact, I discovered that Beijing T3 is 17% bigger than all five of Heathrow's terminals put together! Beijing airport has rapidly ascended the rankings, and in 2009 was third in the world on passenger traffic (up from eighth in 2008); London Heathrow was second (up from third) and Atlanta remains first (as it has been since 2000).