


So, it was Wednesday, 20 August, our last full day in Beijing, very hot and sunny in that white air sort of way! Despite no event tickets, let's just say that the day was not dull!
Jonathan had told us about a new development, called the
Legation Quarter, located in, well, the former
legation (aka--embassy)
quarter--dating from roughly the early 1900s to the Communist takeover. The area is a leafy enclave a couple of blocks east of Tiananmen Square. The actual new development is a square campus-like area of old rehabbed buildings that are or will be fancy restaurants with modern, glass-walled structures--future galleries, mostly, in-between.
One restaurant already opened is
Maison Boulud, the new Beijing installation of the famous (New York, Las Vegas, etc.) chef/restaurateur Daniel Boulud. Maison Boulud is housed in the former American embassy, and a stunning restoration job it is. The link to its web site provides a historical perspective on the building.
Foodie friends, you will be proud to know that we actually ate lunch at Maison Boulud! Patronizing the world-famous palaces of gastronomy is not our typical M.O. (OK, we do love Boulevard in SF for special occasions, and we actually do have our first-ever Gary Danko reservation for our anniversary next month, but these are the exceptions to our rule).We also normally eat Asian in Beijing, but this was very special and a lovely (superb presentation) and delicious French lunch, pricey for China but less than New York. Daniel himself strolled through the dining room while we were there, and I realized that I had seen him on the
Today Show set (he did a demo promoting the Beijing place), apparently on the same broadcast as Wei Wei's dumpling spot. If you go to the link to the spot, please know that we did not order the dish featured (the recipe that starts "1 whole baby pig"!). The manager, Ignace from Belgium, told us that he had previously lived in San Francisco and worked at Gary Danko.
Now, most people don't associate Daniel Boulud with China, but for me, even before this trip, they will always be linked. The only other time I ate at a Boulud place, the flagship Daniel in New York City, was five years ago, when I met Amy in New York for a couple of days. She was traveling with her then bosses, real estate developers from here (whose main Beijing project is called Palm Springs, now largely a Marriott vacation ownership resort) named Nicole and William. New York was their last stop on a business trip on which she got a taste of deluxe travel: the Huntington Ritz Carlton in Pasadena, the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the St. Regis in New York (I was staying on the sofa at my friend, Toni Slotkin's, that trip! Amy had a junior suite with fax machine and bathroom almost the size of Toni's living room. But I digress...) They invited me to dinner, and Toni and I correctly guessed ahead of time that it would be at Daniel, given the status-proving tendency of nouveau riche Chinese. Nicole and William were in their 30s at the time; in the party, besides Amy and me, were two other couples--both closer to my age--one from Hong Kong and the other the operators of Chinese restaurants in New Jersey. We all had the tasting menu, which then was about $200 per person, and Nicole and William picked up the check. Let's face it: they were the only ones from COMMUNIST China. Afterward I wrote a piece called "Mao's Children" that I pitched, unsuccessfully, to the New Yorker's Talk of the Town editors.
After lunch, outside on the "green" that is the Legation Quarter site development, I asked Eli to take a photo of the outside of the glassed-in terrace at Maison Boulud where one couple of customers had been seated. After going over there with him, I started back to the main area, head still turned back to where he was, and missed a really tiny step down, landing on a very turned left ankle and a (now) very bruised right hand. If I had screamed out "Free Tibet" naked in T. Square, I wouldn't have had more immediate attention than I got: first the security guard in front of the restaurant was helping me up, then a few people with an emergency kit, one of the managers (English-speaking Chinese man) and others, including one just to hold an umbrella over me as a sun shield. They and Eli got me over to the stoop of the nearby Italian restaurant, where we had NOT eaten, and the people there got me an ice-filled plastic bag and ice water (which I figured was safe to drink from this upscale place). The swelling bulged instantaneously, and the pain was severe. Besides feeling dumb and aggravated, I felt almost faint from the shock, heat, etc., so the ice water was a godsend.
We had picked up a driver at the Capital Paradise gate that morning--also a Mr. Xu or Shi, but this became the EVEN (numbered and license plated) Mr. Xu. We were to meet him back where he had deposited us on the other side of T. Square, about a 15 minute walk that I wasn't doing. Fortunately, we had taken his mobile phone number. The development manager called to tell him where to fetch us. Once in the car, we called Jonathan, who talked to the driver, who was already planning to take us to United Family Hospital, the main installation of a medical clinic group owned by Roberta Lipson and Elyse Silverberg, two American Jewish women who were pioneers in business in China, having been here about 20 years. They have also been the leading lights of Kehillat Beijing
(www.sinogogue.org--love this web site address!), the liberal Jewish community group that preceded and still co-exisits with Chabad, which has been in Beijing for about five years. (Jonathan plays on Kehillat's softball team, known as the "Pinyan Minyan."
Like most other emergency departments, checking in mandated an up-front deposit (they direct bill some insurance companies, but not ours). The doctor, whom we found out is the head of emergency medicine there, is a nice man named Martin Springer, originally from Chicago, has worked in Nepal and other interesting places, and his wife has played in bands at the Stone Boat. The equipment seemed to be state-of-the-art (including x-ray table on which I first stood, as best I could, and then was mechanically lowered), although the film wasn't digital.
Diagnosis: an avulsion fracture, really a bad sprain through which tendon or ligament chip off (avulse) some bone. (Avulsion, avulse--talk about Scrabble/Bee Season words--new to us!) Treatment: ice, small air cast, ace bandages, elevation. Since I have been the dream patient of many orthopedists in my time (my left ankle was one of my few previously untouched joints after three knee and two foot surgeries, rotator cuff, carpal tunnel), I know the drill better than Dr. Springer! It was, however, heartening to have my son say, "Don't let this go, Mom, take care of it" while we were en route to the hospital.
Fortunately, 1) it's not that serious, 2) it was close to the end of the trip and 3) we travel with drugs!
In the evening we had been invited for dinner by friends of Amy's and Jonathan's, Kim and Hal Fiske, at their large and lovely modern penthouse apartment. Hal is a Boston-native attorney with Conoco Phillips (and slightly embarrassed to be a political liberal with an oil company); like Jonathan, he graduated from Brown, though eleven years ahead. Kim is a lovely woman from Saigon, pregnant with a forthcoming new little sister for Joy, a two and a half year old whirlwind with a cute personality. Kim and their aiyi cooked a wonderful Vietnamese dinner for the four of us, two mutual friends and Amy's dad. A sprained ankle does not stop me--besides, as Eli said, we had to eat! We re-engaged even Mr. Xu for the evening (he had a pretty profitable day, but well worth it to us.)
More to come from Shanghai...