Beijing Roses, Fried Donkey And Fluff Up The Nose

Beijing is full of roses, which is the flower of the city. They are planted along the roads where they stand as much as six or seven feet tall, filled with blossoms from the spring into late fall.

I've been confused because the Chinese call them yueji hua, or 'moon season flowers,' while they call the roses in a flower shop meigui.

I finally looked it up and discovered that the Chinese rose, sometimes called a tea rose, is an older variety and that the classic garden roses that we know of today were developed as hybrids once the Chinese rose had been introduced to Europe in the 1800s.

The cottonwood poplars that line the streets of Beijing are full and fresh and the season of fluff floating in the air is almost over. When the trees are releasing their seeds, the air is filled with the stuff drifting in through windows and occasionally getting sucked up a nostril to startling effect.

Cottonwood fluff.

I recently had donkey meat, served with a kind of fried pocket bread. It was delicious. The dish is a specialty of Hebei Province, the province that wraps around Beijing. Donkey is more commonly found with street sellers, who wrap the meat in larger pieces of bread. This restaurant served a more refined version. I found it surprisingly delicious.

Some more odd art in Beijing.

One of the Four Heavenly Kings, with his foot on a demon ...

... and a good luck bat on his hand.