Beijing: the city of romance and Mao Zedong

Before I go into our recent trip to Beijing, I'd first like to mention my visit to the local witch doctor. Now, somehow I managed to get some pretty gigantic redish purple welts on my legs. I could only assume they were bug bites, which really freaked me out. After I sprayed down my whole apartment with the deadliest bug killer you'll ever see, and almost killing myself in the process, I had Laura, our foreign affairs officer, take me to the doctor. We were on our way home from the police depart (to get our visas extended) when I asked if there was a smaller, clinic type place she could take me instead of something so serious like the hospital. She paused, looked around, and pointed to a random door around the corner. Above said door was a red and white, medical looking cross, so we walk in. Behold, the creepiest place I've been so far while in China. It was a tiny room where 4 people were... "working?"... to the side were 3 cots, one of which was occupied by a sleeping man wearing a blanket and an IV. Needless to say, I felt pretty good about it. Laura said something in Chinese and then told me to show them my leg. They chatted a bit. I girl disappeared and came back with a little yellow and red box. They told me to put it on my bites 2 or 3 times a day. It cost 50 cents American. Who in their right mind is satisfied by medicine they just got for 50 cents? I got home, opened the box and found a little bottle of "Red Dragon Oil" inside. Luckily there were English directions letting me know that Red Dragon Oil can cure everything including; chest pain, abdominal pain, neck pain, rheumatic pain, aching back, sprains, bruises, injuries from exercises, and bites from mosquitoes and bees... oh, and excessive bleeding. Whatever, I guess my bites are looking better...
Aaaaaanyway. The girls and I decided to get the heck out of Chengde this weekend and get some Western style back in our lives by going to Beijing. Brandon, Matt and Julie (Drake students teaching in Shijiazhuang) met up with us too. We got a hostel booked for Saturday night, but there weren't any trains leaving Chengde that would get us to Beijing at a reasonable time, so we decided to take a bus. Since taking this bus, the girls and I have made up a new game called if ________ could see me now, their reaction would be _________. I think of all the people I know, my mother's reaction would have been the best. Mom, if I do somehow convince you to come visit me, we will NOT be taking a bus anywhere. Holy hell, this bus was a piece of work. 45 yuan a piece got us a seat that I could just fit my legs into. We were all packed in like sardines and just when we thought we could fit no more, we would randomly stop on the side of the road to see if anyone else wanted to go to Beijing too. A woman that sounded like the famed Ms. Swan from Mad TV made the bus driver stop at one point so that she could pee in a corn field, and the man directly behind Cathy Lee and I belched for four and a half hours while our bus took bumps in the road about as well as it could considering it had no shocks. The end of our journey brought us to an unknown bus station in Beijing where the best thing we could do was find a cab and point to the address of our hostel. All was well when we finally arrived finding our Shizzy group who had gotten there only 20 minutes before we had.
Food was first on our list, so we hit up the McDonalds. After almost two weeks of dumplings, rice and noodles that was easily the best double hamburger with cheese I've ever had... ever! The highest class item we saw there were the Micky D's jeans that all of the workers were sporting. I'm thinking they're going to be the next hot fashion trend and you'll all be getting some for Christmas.
Next was Tienanmen Square where I bought a Mao Zedong wrist watch featuring Chairman Mao waving his right arm in a way that made me almost wet myself. Bartering from 100 to 25 yuan, I figured it was an ok deal. After putzing around the Forbidden City for a few hours we were forcibly removed as the government was trying to set up for the 60 year anniversary of China resisting the Japanese invasion during WWII. So we went back to the hostel to freshen up, met some Polish guy and a Canook studying feminism in China, Rita... she was a peach and a half, and went down the street to sit on some midgy chairs and eat the spiciest food I ever hope to eat. As an appetiser, Brandon and I romantically shared a pile of spicy snails and then ate this crazy basket of fried... stuff. The mushrooms were ok, the fish balls were a little odd but hands down the most startling thing was the spinach which completely engulfed my mouth in flames. For serious, I was glowing. After downing several rather large bottles of 2 yuan (aka 25 cent) beers we all took a few cabs to club row where we drank a few more outside before going into any of the bars. This is where we met a little Chinese boy we named Mogley for his shirtlessness and tiger print boxer shorts. He was cute enough clinging to my legs and counting to 10 in English until he asked me for money. After I said no he started lathering up some spit in his mouth. I pried him from me, telling him that if he spit on me I would punt him... so he turned around and hocked a big one at Cathy Lee, hitting her squarely in the thigh. There was no punting because we held her back, but she got pretty close.
Blah blah blah, we all had a good time, went to bed, woke up with big hangovers, nursed ourselves back to health and then went to a huge antique market. Coolest stuff ever there. We all want to go back once we get paid and can actually buy things. Later, Brandon escorted the girls and I to the train station to catch the 10:30pm train that would get us into Chengde at 4am, but there was no room. So we got tickets for the following morning, and though I was going to miss one of my classes, Laura understood our troubles and we were happy to spend another night in Beijing with our friends. The highlight of our second night was the crazy vodkas we found down the street. One had snakes in it, one had big ass lizards and the crowning glory was the one with tiger penis in it. Very exciting. Normally I would have been all for disgusting stuff like that, but I had a few moral issues with the tiger penis vodka. This wasn't a problem, however, because women aren't allowed to drink it anyway. Apparently my sexual prowess would have been severely messed up as it was a male aphrodisiac... whatever, Brandon and Matt got drunk off two shots because it was so strong and I just giggled at them as they tried to make friends with the bartender who didn't know a lick of English.
In all, it was an entirely refreshing trip. All homesickness was cured after some Western food and interaction with familiar faces. We figure we'll need a trip like that every once in a while to keep us sane (being some of the only foreigners in Chengde) so we're going to the Shizzy in a few weeks for the Moon Festival. Moon cakes all around and some home cooked meals from Matt and Julie... I can hardly wait.