The Spiders Were Busy

The Spider holds a Silver Ball
In unperceived Hands --
And dancing softly to Himself
His Yarn of Pearl -- unwinds...
-Emily Dickinson

And unwinds, and unwinds. The other morning -a misty, moisty morning- I noticed that all our bushes, and everyone else’s bushes, were covered with beautiful spider webs.

Crickets For Sale

Buy, Buy Beijing

Back in Beijing...

Hong Qiao Pearl Market
Near the Temple of Heaven is a heavenly place for those of us who like to shop. Here you can find the (fake?) Polos, purses, parkas, etc. On the third and fourth floors you can buy pearls at the same place Colin Powell and Bill Clinton shop.

Ikea, Beijing-style
Since our last trip to Shanghai we’ve been wondering what the Ikea in China is like (we saw the sign but didn’t have time for a visit). Now we know. Sunday was not the smartest time to go but we had no choice. As we all know, Ikea prides itself on its “store-flow” setup. It’s a maze you go through to get to the Marketplace section. Well, the arrows here are on the floor, too, but no one pays them any attention. It was so crowded with under-30s that we had to squeeze our way through. A glimpse at the cafe (huge) revealed some concessions to the local food- rice and stew- alongside the mandatory Swedish meatballs. Overall, though, pretty much everything else was the same at the same prices. Now everybody’s house will look the same.

The Bird, Insect, Fish Market
All the different kinds of turtles and fish make up for the fact that there are no birds at the Bird Market. I suspect it’s due to the Avian Flu scare. There are also rodents, rabbits, tarantulas, puppies, and kittens but the market is mostly filled with crickets and cricket paraphernalia. The crickets are sold by their individual weight and each one comes in a little ceramic bowl covered with a tin lid held in place by a rubber band. The surrounding sound of all these caged crickets is wonderful (my opinion) so I can understand why someone would want these little guys. Not only do they sell various little houses for them -ceramic jars, stick cages, little ornate boxes- but they also have itsy-bitsy food and water dishes (I bought some!) and training sticks, a long skewer with some string at the end (like a lion tamer has, only smaller, much smaller).

Going to a Ger

It turns out that there aren’t any roads in Mongolia. The driver could choose from about 5 dirt very rough pathways and let’s just say, I did not fare well stomach-wise. The one lane paths don’t have any direction, it seemed, but we saw no other vehicles anyway. Our weekend tour involved just the two of us in a WB vehicle with a driver and guide, another vehicle from the tour company and a third vehicle with a driver and cook and a traveling kitchen. After the bumpy road and for the next day I really didn’t need the cook and tasted none of his cooking. We stayed in a traditional ger (yurt, the Russian word is frowned upon). The one we had was adapted for the Prince of Holland so it had a square metal addition with a toilet and shower. Guests in the other gers had to use the facilities in a small dining building -we ate there, too (well, I didn’t), but our food was prepared separately in the traveling kitchen. Sanitary conditions here leave something to be desired. The ger was cute and cozy and had a stove in the middle; although it was cool we did not need it lit. It was nicely decorated with bright red and blue fabric walls, a double bed and a single bed and oompah-loompah doors to enter and to go the loo.

The Hustai National Park where this ger settlement was located is home to the Przewalski Horses (Talki in Mongolian). We were lucky enough to see herds of them and then watched for 2 hours while they rounded up 3 who were tranquilized and put in crates to be sent to another park in Mongolia. The talki are more compact than a regular horse with a short-haired erect mane and a thicker neck. We also saw many, many marmots -the groundhog-like rodent which the nomads love to eat. They take the head off, clean out the innards (which they eat separately) and then roast them in their skin. Yum.

On the second day, we visited a nomadic family. The mother and her 3 year old daughter we met invited us in to their ger and offered us the traditional milk (this time the fermented mare’s milk), some kind of homemade vodka and plates full of fly-covered biscuits. I think J. took a sip. They had a TV (tuned to some kind of geometry program) and electricity thanks to a solar panel on the roof. Everything including the house is portable; they move each season to a different location. The mother took us to the herd of horses where she milked several of the mares. She does this every two hours during the day; at night the herd is let loose till morning. Evidently more intrepid (and younger) travelers than we are often are invited to stay with these nomadic families; they are very hospitable and seemed very nice to us. The tour guide left them with a bag of food goodies as a thank you.

Monastery Cows

My son likes my cows.