Still fresh from my brief experience in Beijing where the city is
full of extreme contrasts, such as the meticulously clean restrooms
in modern hotels and the Beijing Airport as opposed to the hole in
the ground and no toilet paper facilities at one of the world's
greatest Tourist attractions of the Great Wall of China!
Food is another contrast. The cruise ship booked out one-night
stay in Beijing at one of the "5-star" hotels, the New Century Hotel
on the South side of the city. After our Great Wall tour, we weren't
all that hungry to want to spend 168 Yuen (plus 15% taxes) at the
buffet in the hotel (which comes to $21 USD per person plus
15% tax plus tips), my wife and I decided to venture to one of the
"local" restaurants (only half a block from the hotel), where the
only patrons (besides us) were Chinese and the menu was
completely in Chinese.
I was intrigued by the posted signs on the window outside of the
restaurant listing a number of dishes for 8 Yuens (almost the
exact equivalent of $1 USD). I immediately vetoed my wife's
idea of eating KFC chicken across the street! We didn't come
all this way to Beijing to eat Kentucky Fried chicken!
So, we fearlessly stepped into this local restaurant because
while my Mandarin is also as bad as the India Indian's English
in English, I can read the menu very well because that's the
common lauguage among dozens of dialects in China before
Mandarin was declared the official spoken language, while
90% of those who emigrated into other countries all over the
world speak Cantonese!
At that price, I figured the servings must be small -- besides,
I wanted to order something with chicken, beef, pork, and bean
curd -- so those were FOUR dishes I ordered, including the
well-known Ma Poo chicken dish in the US (hot pepper, with
peanuts, and diced chicken). To make a long story shorter,
that ONE dish would have filled us, and it was the most
delicious Ma Poo Kai Pen I've eaten in some time. The four
dishes (costing $4 USD) had enough to feed at least 8 very
hungry people, and as a result, we left 90% of our ordered
fook uneaten though we managed to finish about half of the
chicken dish!
That's a stark CONTRAST of the cost of FOOD between
those eaten by the locals and those eaten by tourists!
Well, it's time to catch the red-eye flight to go home, via
Cleveland and Atlanta!
-- Bob.
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