Weird drinks: #1

In China you can buy some strange drinks. Jan and I will try all of them. Today, we picked Hei Doujiang 黑豆浆 (black soy milk). This was nothing like the Alpro soy milk you can buy in Belgium. Instead, it tasted as if someone added too much water to bread flour until it became a slimy and viscous drink.

The drink on the right is the black soy milk. The drink on the left is sweet cold tea. It is very popular in China. We thought it was way too sweet, but it was drinkable.

And what about the black soy milk? ... I think this reaction says it all.

Water, earth, fire, air.

Avatar Aang might be in the spirit world, but he first came to Beijing to teach the people air bending. After many years, the art of bending has been forgotten, but the people still practice Tai Qi in the parks at early hours.

First days of Beijing

Two days in Beijing.

We used the first two days to get lost in the city, in a pleasant way. The capital of China is huge and there's plenty of things to see. I figured the best way to explore was by foot. That might've been a mistake, because everything is further away than you first thought it would be. Although, doing this, we enjoyed the freedom of going to random places in the city and found some nice spots.  The pictures below were taken at 后海 (hòuhai3), a more quiet spot in the northeastern part of the city centre. There we saw people fishing, playing ping pong, "working out" or just sleeping.

At lunchtime, we were near the forbidden city, where there are not much (satisfying) food opportunities to find. So, we took the subway to a random station: Guomao. After walking through a maze-like shopping center, we emerged from the underground in a tall glass tower, which appeared to be at the center of the (a?) Beijing business district. We had some Japanese ramen there and went back to the city centre.

Monday night, we just grabbed a quick snack from one of the many street food shops. After that, we went out for beers with our friendly roommates from Sao Tomé & Principe.