Breaking for winter in China's capital

Back in Beijing, but only briefly 

She's gone. Back to the States, that is, to get ready for the start of the winter quarter at her university. For almost the past fortnight we've been blessed to have our daughter back home, spending her winter break with us here in Beijing 北京. Though we talk on the phone once a week, and frequently message each other on WeChat, these past 13 days leading up to New Year's Eve were the first time to have seen her in the flesh since we parted ways in Corvallis, Oregon in late September. What follows are some photos of Amber's all-too-brief visit spent with Shu-E and me as 2024 came to a close.

The girl arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport 北京首都国际机场 on the evening of the 18th. Unfortunately I was in the midst of a nasty virus (sore throat, runny nose, cough, fever) that kept me out of the office for several days, and also meant that I couldn't join my wife in welcoming our daughter back to China: 

Illness and the demands of work (once I was feeling well enough to return to the office) meant I couldn't join the girls in some of their activities, like the late weekday morning they visited the China Craft Museum and China Intangible Cultural History Museum. I had been to that institution back in October 2022 as part of my language school's "Immersion Week", and had enjoyed the modern interpretations of China's artistic and cultural past. Amber and Shu-E shared these photos of their visit:

Three days before Christmas my life force score had still not returned to normal levels, but I was feeling well enough to go out with my wife and daughter to a small Christmas market at Maison FLO, a famous French restaurant in Beijing. Lunch for us that day, however, was had at a much cheaper Chinese beef noodle restaurant nearby, after which we walked to the venue. The market itself was somewhat underwhelming, consisting mainly of vendors selling desserts and snacks, but Santa did put in an appearance:

No Christmas market would be complete without the traditional Christmas clown performance:

Amber and I shared a banana and chocolate waffle:

It didn't take long for my daughter and Timi, our resident Siamese, to reconnect after several months apart. The long-term plan is for Amber to move into a pet-friendly apartment following her year in the dorms, and have Timi join her at Oregon State:

A Christmas Eve lunch at Haidilao Hotpot 海底捞火锅:

The chain is known for a number of gimmicks, which include Bian Lian 变脸 performers and staff demonstrating their dexterity with the hotpot noodles:

Their restaurants also often feature an onsite nail salon. After lunch Shu-E had a manicure while Amber received a hand massage. I had to make do with the gift apple given out after the meal, nails untouched: 

The branch where we lunched was in the Sanlitun 三里屯 shopping district:

The real Christmas tree my wife picked up at the flower market (I was too sick to join her) brought back memories of A Charlie Brown Christmas: 

On Christmas Day we opened our presents, followed by lunch at the South German Bakery (I had the Cordon Bleu). In the afternoon the three of us went shopping at SOLANA to buy warmer clothes for Amber to wear when she returns to campus, and for the trip Shu-E and I will be taking to Hokkaidō 北海道 in late February (the third for me to Japan's northernmost island but my wife's first visit):

Not being a citizen of a Commonwealth nation Boxing Day saw me back in the office. The girls, however, spent some time on the 26th in the massive National Museum of China 中国国家博物馆, located on the east side of Tiananmen Square 天安门广场 (I visited during the aforementioned Immersion Week back in October of '22). The museum is huge, but my wife and daughter spent their time mainly in the Ancient China exhibition, where Amber took most of these photos: 

Shu-E was responsible for this photo - the design of her coffee was of the Ming-dynasty 明朝 Phoenix crown of Empress Xiaoduanxian 孝端顯皇后, a highlight of the museum's collection (it would be crass of me at this point to note that many of the institution's items are replicas, and that the finest examples of China's rich artistic heritage are ironically found in Taipei 台北): 

The real crown is made of 71 rubies, 57 sapphires and 5449 pearls. There was a long line of people wanting to get a photograph of it, so the girls made do with admiring it from a distance. This is what it looks like:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/nlmj4s/the_phoenix_crown_of_empress_xiaoduanxian/

On another afternoon Amber dropped in at the embassy to say hello, and I took her out to a nearby cafe:

On our daughter's last weekend in town the three of us went out for lunch at a Korean restaurant beside the Liangma River:

Afterward we did a bit of sightseeing at Zhihua Temple 智化寺. According to my Lonely Planet guide "it was built in 1444 to honor a corrupt and powerful eunuch, Wang Zhen 王振, who held tremendous sway over the guileless Emperor Zhengtong 政统帝". The Bell Tower was the first structure of note after purchasing our tickets (except for your humble scribe who now qualifies for free entry as a senior citizen in some places in China!) and entering the temple grounds:

The girls look at an exhibit on colorful ceiling tiles:

Of course all they had to do was to look up:

The rather jarring juxtaposition of Galaxy SOHO looming in the background:

A mural inside the Zhihua Hall:

The Scriptures Hall was dominated by a zhuănlún zàng 转轮藏, an eight-sided rotating scriptures cabinet on a marble base:

The Buddha seated beneath a mandala ceiling fresco was difficult to see from ground level:

The afternoon was a chilly 6°C/43°F, though the wind chill at times made it feel below freezing:

At 1500 hours there was a brief performance of ritual Buddhist music called Jing utilizing traditional Chinese instruments. This National Museum of Asian Art article does a better job of explaining this better than what I can do:

The Ten Thousands Buddha Hall is the largest building in the temple complex:

The interior is dominated by this wood-carved trinity of...: 

...the Tathagata Buddha...:

...Indra...:

and Brahma:

One of the ten thousand Buddhas, presumably:

Sutra drawers (as in drawers used to store sutras):

The 2nd floor apparently houses a seated Buddha but is closed to visitors:

After the temple we took a brief stroll in the surrounding hutong 胡同 neighborhood:

On Sunday Amber met up with some friends, so I went for a solo stroll in the afternoon, taking in Beijing's winter bleakness:

On Monday the girl met me for lunch at the Qiaoshi Cuisine 桥什料理 Japanese restaurant:

Given the choice for dinner, Amber suggested going to an izakaya 居酒屋 called Tianqing 天晴 (Appare あっぱれ in Japanese) that we've been to often enough that the owner greets my wife as if she were a regular customer:

All good times must come to an end, and so on New Year's Eve we took our daughter back to the airport to say farewell:

Thanks to the magic of jet travel and time zones, Amber left China in the evening of the 31st and then, following a 20+ hour-long journey, arrived in Seattle on the evening of New Year's Eve local time there, arriving at my sister's place in the Seattle suburbs in time to see the fireworks show that took place at the stroke of midnight on the iconic Space Needle:

It should go without saying that Shu-E and I relished the time spent having our daughter back with us, and were sad to bid her farewell, especially as we won't be seeing her in person again until June, where her freshman year at college ends. I was quite pleased, however, to note that my little girl, in the course of her first three months as a Beaver, has turned into a confident young adult. By all accounts the first quarter went very well, and I have no reason to doubt the winter and spring terms will be any different. And while admittedly the dreaded "empty nest syndrome" has been difficult for me as a parent, I'm happy in the knowledge that the biggest complaint Amber has had with life at school is that the campus eateries only serve long-grain rice, and not the sticky short-grain variety she (and I) much rather prefer. And for that Shu-E bought her a rice cooker to use in the dorms. 

I'd like to end this post with the preceding the paragraph, but I unfortunately can't. And that's because more than 2½ months on from the end of the bidding cycle I still do not have an onward assignment following the end of the current tour this summer. I've bitched and moaned about this in previous posts so I'll end this one by just saying "Mama don't let your sons (and daughters) grow up to be diplomats". Not unless they're adept at brown-nosing schmoozing networking and developing contacts:

Happy New Year, 新年快乐 and あけましておめでとうございます!