lactose intolerance....

*sigh* ... i've forgotten how fun lactose intolerance is.  i'm glad that at least lactase is inducible for me. i think... well, it used to be....
but that was damn good milk!!!  the milk i drank expires in 7 days, cf. our 3 weeks.  the baggy room temperature milk expires never... or maybe it was a year....

On to other experiences.
Last sunday was my birthday, so my cousin took me out - yay!!!!!  FINALLY!!  He promised to come over at 9, so i got up at 7:30 (stupid dog!!!) and got ready to wait for him... for a solid two plus hours!!!  he didn't get here 'til 11:20ish!!  aaarrgh... so we all hopped into his tiny little car and drove off towards the mountains.  literally.  I got shotgun cuz i'm the fattest.  yup!  i like riding shotgun anyway, so i have no problem with that.  :D

We went to this place called 爨 village or smt.  i'm not writing out that word so that u ppl can find out how to read it.  its a complicated-looking word!!!!!  anyway, its a little village in the middle of mountains and it was kinda cool to see a rural village like that.  and even tho it was very touristy, locals actually still live there!  and they're very friendly when explaining the history of the place, where they live, etc.  the village itself was cute.... but the ride there and back was scary. 

My cousin's car is a Suzuki Alto, which is probably only sold in China.  Max speed is 140 km/h, only 4 gears, 30L gas tank, the V3.  that's right, 3.  the engine roars at >3000rpm at 80km/h on the highest gear, so u can imagine how fast the car can actually go.  Its a good little car tho.  my seat belt even worked!!  (once we found the buckle... i was the only one latched in... the driver wasn't even belted!!!)  the road up and down was on the side of the mountains - sheer cliff on one side going up, sheer cliff on the other side, going straight down... two lane road with craaaazy ass chinese drivers and tons of TRUCKS!!  the trucks drive at 20km/h and they're hard to pass cuz the road is also very windy and u can't see oncoming traffic around corners cuz there are no mirrors or any other safety protocols.  The ride was reminiscent of my first trip to SF with BW... 'cept much more scarier than SF roads!  O.o  luckily, we made it there and back a-ok! 

Before we went there, we passed through a little "town" (still in beijing, but obviously not in beijing beijing) to get some lunch.
Lunch was 闷鱼 or smt like that.  it was a cool concept... basically, they put veggies in a woke, then top it with a raw cut up fish, all cooked right in front of you.  Cooking basically involves putting in a sauce, closing the lid on the wok, and letting the 'steam' of the veggies and the sauce cook the fish.  The veggies tasted great.  I don't like fish.
after u're done the fish, they then pour in some "soup" and it becomes hotpot where u add more veggies!  that was yummy hot pot!!!  it had a very distinctive taste. 
No clue what the restaurant was called.  it was 3 words, on a yellow background.  its a chain.  the sauce is the key and is kinda.... jelly-y.... sorta....

For dinner, we had Korean BBQ at a chain restaurant called 汉拿山. 
KBBQ is very different here, and much MUCH better than our $12 buffet dinner KBBQ places! .
We ordered only kalbi and some other beef thing to grill - both were really good.  Not as good as the kalbi that Annie's dad made for me, but still really good.  We also got mushrooms to grill, which tasted good too.  even their sauce was really good!!!!  everything was really good.  So there, that's 2 restaurants i'd recommend in Beijing.  The other thing that's really different from our KBBQ and here KBBQ is HOW the food is cooked.  In Toronto, the meat is cooked on a domed metal thing over a natural gas fire.  Here, the meat is actually on a grill, and its cooked over charcoal embers!!!  and if u've ever had food cooked over charcoal embers, u'll know the difference.  that definitely contributed to the yumminess of the food.  Also, the grill is changed for you basically everytime u cook something!  So, instead of eating the burnt carcinogenic carbon that we're so used to eating at our KBBQs, here, the grill was changed 5 times for us, but we only had 2 tiny plates of meat to grill!!  great service (china labour = cheap).

The other really cool thing we got was called 生拌牛肉 which is basically slivers of raw beef, plus slivers of apple and pear, mixed in with a raw egg and some lemon juice.  Its mixed in front of u and looked really ... RED!  but it tasted amazing!!!  like, really really good.  and no, no food poisoning or anything like that from the raw beef. 
The bibimbap and the Kimchi fried rice weren't so good tho.  neither was the tempura.  AND they didn't give us free kimchi!!  what kinda Korean restaurant doesn't give out kimchi?!?!  I don't get it.

all in all, this restaurant ranks up there with the Muslim restaurant.  both are meat over charcoal embers.  hmmm....
KBBQ cost a whopping total of 250yuan-ish for 5 ppl (altho only two of us really eats stuff... i.e. me and cousin).  The kalbi was the most expensive, at 72yuan for two 'pieces" (they're rather large pieces).  oh, and we got 70yuan to use there next time!