My main reason for coming to Beijing was to have a reunion with my best friends from college. Three of us remained this weekend, and the original plan had been to take a road trip to Inner Mongolia, but the friend with the hospitalized student had to do a lot of reports and paperwork because of the incident so we just stayed in Beijing. We had a girls' day today, and went to a really beautiful tea house for lunch.
The tea house, called Xiao Diao Li Tang, was decorated in the old Chinese style, with stone fountains filled with gold fish, red lanterns, wood carvings, and traditional Chinese instruments. There were two colorful birds in a cruelly tiny cage though. That was the only thing I didn't like. They were huddled together, with barely enough space to shuffle back and forth, and not enough room to fully open their wings.
The food was excellent. We had baby zucchini, with little yellow flowers, black tofu skin with some type of vegetable, stewed tendons, intestines, and red bean cake.
Afterwards, we went to a massage spa. The massages here that I have had are really good. Perhaps it is their training, but they incorporate acupressure and it is very effective. They are skilled at finding and releasing trigger points. Also, you are allowed to stay and hang out in the room for as long as you want to, and you have complimentary and unlimited food and drinks.
Under some of the bridges by the road, people are gathered late at night to play Chinese chess. The other day at the spa, I asked my friend if she wanted to play.
"Sure," she said, "but I don't know the rules."
I realized that I actually didn't know the rules either. "Maybe we can figure it out."
We played a hybrid of checkers which we ended up giving up on but it was still pretty fun.
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