北京6

Today - Total steps 17721 (12.1km)

6月21号咱们早上去朝阳区逛逛798艺术文化区。Friend, Julie, recommends us to go there and so we shall.

北京798艺术文化区是市，区两级的首批文化创意产业集聚，汇集画廊，艺术空间，艺术家工作室，时尚店铺，餐饮酒吧等

I wonder if this is just a graffiti or a true religious message?

This is the shop where you can send a postcard/letter addressed to yourself  sometime in the future

We stop by this little quaint place for lunch. The food isn't great but hey we have comfortable coach seats and sofas, simple decor of bookshelves, dim light, soft music; and quiet .... Nice for chilling out (for old folks) in a hot summer afternoon.

I sneak out after lunch for a quick 5-minute caricature drawing session with this artist and when I show the ladies what I've got (the picture) they both are game to do the same. BTW the artist resembles "Lat"?

The result turns out to be a little hilarious but hey it was fun; after all it's art!

The proprietor keeps saying, "我佷肥呀，我佷肥呀！"

We keep saying to her, "那里， 那里？" - hilarious  

We stroll along in the vast compound of 798 after lunch and waltz into this little specialty t shirt cum music shop and by chance they are playing this fantastic 古琴 music. We make some enquiry with the proprietor and decide to buy 2 CDs by 巫娜

荷香淡淡

闲云点点

The orchestral music is so soothing and relaxing. I love it (er .... old folks music)

When we get back to the apartment Raymond starts to cook his favorite dish for us for brekie tomorrow - Ipoh 鸡丝沙河粉。He actually has the 河粉 couriered in from Guangzhou! 好伟大！

丝丝also gets her share of the prawns

So tonight is our penultimate dinner in Beijing and we wish to do something different, something extraordinary. 

R and I decide that we will let the ladies do their own thing .... and we do our own thing. Like a boys' night out ..... Fair enough, the ladies agree.

So R suggests and I concur that we should go to the 胡同 near his house (which has a 菜市，that's where R gets the other ingredients for his Ipoh 鸡丝沙河粉 i.e. 韭菜 （must have or else it's not  Ipoh 鸡丝沙河粉) and 芽菜； to have a 地道烤羊腿。

Off we go to his favorite joint .....  碳花烤羊腿 .....

It's so hot in here half a dozen men I observe just take their shirts off while eating. And the rest of the diners could care less of their behavior.

Young ladies enjoying the food, beer and company. R leaves them alone; tonight. R knows when to take it and when to fold. Baddest boy in the whole damn town. 哈哈哈。

Cheers. R has 4.5 mugs of beer tonight and I have 1.5 mugs. He's a much better beer drinker than I am, in fact he has a better head than I have .....

Wow. Look at the size of this leg of lamb. It is 3.5 斤 and it's just the right size for two of us for dinner. And it's delicious even for 2 Aussies cooking meat on the barbie .....

 来啦， 来啦； Raymond is saying

The oven with the red hot charcoal under the wire mesh tray, is bloody H.O.T. We are very sure the hot stove has burnt numerous of our body hair!

Hmmmm, yum. For me this is a rare and wonderful experience of eating barbequed meat. I can imagine this style of eating is so popular in winter here in Beijing. The food is great, the meat is fresh, the atmosphere boisterous. It's not fine dining but it's enjoyable. 

The atmosphere in the restaurant is rowdy, a bit rough even, the air is tinged with strong oily smell, the furnishing basic but heck, it is fun! And we talk crappy things too the two of us!

Raymond and I are sure that if our STOBA78 boys and girls are here for a meal they will have a ball .... both eating, drinking and making all kinds of noises .....

 R and the proprietor

I join in the honor roll. Ha ha.