Today was a cold and rainy day in Beijing, so what better day to go slogging around in the mud and dust in the semi-industrial and heavily under construction Beijing 798 Art Zone? Robin and her classmates had their final day of pedagogical ecstasy, so the partners and Huey were shuttled off by bus to the bastion of China's contemporary art scene.
"The 798" is a grove of abandoned factories and industrial installations that have been reclaimed by a number of modern artists and in a few short 
years has come to set the standard for galleries in modern China. So popular is "the 798" that the Chinese government is pouring millions of RMB in to upgrading the roads and infrastructure of the area for the coming onslaught of Olympics visitors. Huey spent the day wandering between (and tracking mud into) cafes and shops and workspaces and galleries, admiring and marveling at the talent, innovation, and craftsmanship, which would give even the most successful American or European artists a run for their renminbi.
years has come to set the standard for galleries in modern China. So popular is "the 798" that the Chinese government is pouring millions of RMB in to upgrading the roads and infrastructure of the area for the coming onslaught of Olympics visitors. Huey spent the day wandering between (and tracking mud into) cafes and shops and workspaces and galleries, admiring and marveling at the talent, innovation, and craftsmanship, which would give even the most successful American or European artists a run for their renminbi.Anyone who has had The HueBin Experience, or who knows Robin or Huey individually, knows that WE LOVE CAKE!!! Perhaps no one knows that better than our dear friends and partners in crime, BrEllen (ne Brian and Ellen Castrucci, who, for our purposes, pioneered the non-celebrity name-morphing trend), who posted a comment to this blog inquiring about Asian cake. It should come as no surprise, then, that among the items Huey brought back from "the 798" were not one, but two, samples of baked Chinese goodness. (Don't ask us what KIND of cake. We have no idea. We just ate it.) Our initial thoughts: Asian cake gets a HACS (HueBin Appreciation of Cake Scale) rating of 5.5 out of 10. (But stayed tuned for HACS updates.)
The rest of the day? Hmmmm.... Good question. Robin laid down for a nap around 5 PM, while Huey blogged and caught up on e-mail. Huey then laid down for a nap around 6 PM. We woke up at 1 AM on Monday.
Ah, VacAsian...!
We've got a morphed name too: Bramber... courtesy of a friend of mine. We thought it was funny and adopted it, and my family uses it too :)
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