It’s our second night in Beijing and our guide helped us order an awesome dinner of spicy fried rice, stir-fried-to-perfection bok choy with saucy noodles, fried egg with leek dumpling, with the addendum, “no meat and mild for baby.”  Baby sidled up to us for her share.  We’ve discovered that she will eat solids only if presented to her with chop sticks.  But of course!  She’s probably been thinking up until now, “Why on earth would I let strangers put a pitchfork in my mouth?”  That’s not to say the little one will eat just anything, but if it’s rice or noodles, she’s in.  Then, if we’re not quick enough for her next mouthful, she roots around in her bag of institutional behaviours and usually picks her favourite.  We’re cautiously assuming that she’s right-handed because when she pounds on the side of her head and screams, she always uses her right hand.

I hate to say it but my first impression of Beijing was how much it reminded me of Toronto.  I know, I know, but when we drove in from the airport it was 19 degrees (according to the pilot of our China Southern flight from Guangzhou), misty gray and overcast.  Like Toronto, right about now.  Well-tended gardens lined the highway like they do everywhere we’ve been in China and here the Beijing rose bushes are in their third bloom of the season and make an otherwise dull drive quite pleasant.  Civic beautification gives concrete structures a nice fresh feel that makes me think we should bring these gardeners back to Ontario to see if they could do something along the 401 on that stretch between Toronto and Montreal.

They say Beijing smells because of the pollution, which we did notice when we arrived but it’s no longer evident so I’m not sure what that means. Others have warned us that we’ll cough for weeks when we return but since I haven’t started coughing yet I’ll assume we’re going to be OK.  Besides, millions of people live here that are still apparently alive so we’ll take that as a good sign.

This is an elegant city.  It’s so rich in history but because the climate and trees are so like Canada, it’s comforting and familiar.  What brought us back down to earth was our visit this morning to Tian’anmen Square.  It was rainy, windy and VAST.  We read somewhere that the Chinese imperials never built squares so they wouldn’t provide a place for people to gather (and protest imperialism, presumably), but when they did, they really did.  It’s so big that if it weren’t for the monstrous buildings that line its perimeter, the National Museum of China, Chairman Mao’s Memorial Hall and the Great Hall of the People, you’d need a plane to show you where it ends and the rest of the horizon starts.  We didn’t see the Forbidden City today (like so many millions of Chinese when it was still actively Forbidden), but we’ll catch it later this week.

We did have official business though, which is why we’re here in the first place.  We have to announce that while we heretofore had thought that our nod to Chairman Mao Zedong would be limited to the purchase of a Little Red Book (they didn’t bother with the old trick of tea-staining the pages since ours has an English translation that belies any nod to authenticity), and K’s nifty Mao pocket watch with the movable hand that waves twice per second (the seller said, “Chairman Mao Hello! Hello!”).  Our darling daughter had her picture taken at the China Photo Studio this aft for her visa photo, where Mao had the three famous photos of himself taken, not least the one that graces the entrance to the Forbidden City at the northern side of Tian’anmen Square.  In fact, those three photos are in the front of the store, and we were urged by to have our picture taken in front of them. While our guide was trying to find which button to press on the camera, another gentleman took a picture of us having our picture taken in front of three of Mao Zedong’s photographs in the front of the famous photography store.

We’ve only been here for 24 hours so our exposure is limited but T took some awesome photos of the city last night and happened upon a big communal dance held in the courtyard of an lovely old Catholic Church, St. Joseph’s, on Wangfujing Dajie, with pounding music and attended to by people of all ages.  It was surreal but gave us a sense that this city has a whimsical spirit that we’re going to love.  Who would dance in front of a church late on a Saturday night?

Who wouldn’t?