东直门 Dongzhimen March 07

DongZhiMen means the East Gate or East Door

Beijing is made up of ring roads, it has five ring roads encircling the centre "The Forbidden City and Tianamen

The first ring road was the original city wall

Now the first ring road has a subway line that runs under where the original wall was

The subway stations often refer to what the gate was in ancient times

Each gate had a purpose or was restricted to certain people.

Then I caught the train to Dongzhimen.

One side of it had massive sky scrapers.

I walked down Dongzhimenn nei street (inner st)

There were many restaurants. All one story high. It has some small little shops too. I liked it because there was a mix of stuff. Sometimes I could see alley ways with old hutongs. There were Russian + Chinese Muslim restaurants. Dongzhimen had character. There is something about it. Just very subtle or something

I went to one restaurant. They gave me the English menu - all the prices had been changed. 38-48 yuan for a meal. (i try to think of a yuan as a dollar) rip off.
Went to another place without an English menu 18 yuan. I ordered

口水鸡

no idea what that was. something to do with Chicken. just randomly picked on of the chicken dishes 鸡


i looked at the name of my dish 水 means water 口 means mouth. and you know what chicken means. oh, hope this isnt chicken soup. i dont want soup.

my meal came. it was chilli chicken. the exact same meal i always have at the chinese muslim stall at the wanfujing food court. one of my favourite meals. yummy but lotsa bones.

read my "Exploring the Silk Road" book on the bus.
was talking about how they found ancient pictures influenced by Greek alfresco's but showing the story of buddha's life. talked about all the Indian, Greek, Italian, Arabic - artifacts found up north west China. Also talks about Chinese silk in Rome. blah blah. The Chinese had heard of Rome. They thought Rome was inhabited by Chinese people.

The silk road runs through
China, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey & Rome.
Buddhism was introduced into China via the silk road.

Tang Dynasty Chang'an was the capital of China (now known as Xian) Many people (Chinese and non Chinese) called Chang'an "the capital of the world" it was the largest metropolis in the world at that time.
many people gathered in China --- traders from persia, students form japan, sailors from arabia, priests from rome, buddhist and islamic scholars.