Finding Fe Fe

We left Monday (I realize now my blog is a little out of order, but I haven't been at my computer for a long while, so now I have time, and a book I don't want to read, so here we are), in search of Fe Fe, the tailor who came highly recommended by a personal friend of one of the guys on the trip. According to Chase's friend, anyone who's anybody has a suit custom made by Fe Fe the tailor, who does really great work for super cheap. I'm not really in the market for a suit, but I was in the market for an adventure in the Chaoyang district so I tagged along.

We left around three and hopped on a bus to Chaoyang (that's where I work). The bus took about 45 minutes (which, I've been told is most excellent in Beijing) and when we hopped off, we were sent in six different directions by six different people (it's impossible to ask directions to anywhere).

When we finally found Fe Fe, we found a tiny little woman in a tiny shop with a small back room stocked with suits and dresses. She kept all of her orders in little brown books, all of which looked exactly the same, and I spent like an hour trying to figure out how she keeps herself organized. I also watched her mark a piece of fabric for a pair of pants. I noticed that she didn't use spit marks, like the crazy puppet maker on Project Runway (I can't remember her name), but rather some quick marks with some chalk. The woman knows what she's doing. After poring over her magazines, some new, some not so much, we found suits for Jen and Chase, who were then measured and then we spent another painstaking hour picking out fabrics. I think Fe Fe needs to expand the shop.

After we left Fe Fe's, like three hours later, we set out to find some food before we headed back to our side of town. We wandered for at least half an hour before we decided to go to a place recommended by the handy guidebook. When we got to the restaurant, we found that it had been ranked "One of the Ten best restaurants in the world" by the New York Times, and we were pleasantly surprised that it actually was some pretty good Dim Sum.

And how much, you ask, does one of the best restaurants in the world, cost? Our bill for 6 people was less than 500 RMB. We spent about $10 a person. Gotta love that exchange rate.