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Beijing 2009 – Week 28-31 – Beijing Zoo, Martial Arts and More Bars
Beijing. China. The beginning of June to the beginning of August. Sure, I’ve traveled a bit before this, and I’ve been on job trips to various countries. But it really is a big thing to spend six weeks working in a foreign country – especially one where you can’t speak the native language. In retrospect I think that’s the biggest obstacle I encountered during the whole visit: no matter how many small phrases or words one learns, it’s just not enough to be able to communicate with people. If I’m ever going to spend another long stretch of time in China I’ll make sure to learn the language – at least to some extent.
All in all it was a wonderful experience. Amazing sights to see, a lot of culture to experience (both ancient and contemporary), incredible all-nighters at different bars and clubs, great shopping, weather ranging from blazing sunshine to smog and rain, events and music and interesting people, and much more. My first four weeks were covered fairly well but for the second part of my journey I thought I’d sum things up more quickly. You’re getting one month’s worth of awesomeness covered in a single few lines. And pictures.
Beijing Zoo is a terrible place. Miserable pandas in plexiglass cages, mangy animals looking half dead and tourists gawking at them all day long. It’s awful that I contributed to the animals’ position since I paid my entry fee to see them – but how would I have seen the situation they’re in otherwise?
Let’s just say that I won’t recommend people to go there. The only happy animals seem to be the stuffed ones in the souvenir shops.
There are some nice bar streets in Beijing. I’ve tried quite a few areas: Sanlitun, Workers Stadium in general, Houhai, The Place, Ritan Park, Solana, around Chaoyang Park and some other places as well. The variety is good, ranging from common tourist traps to cozy Western pubs to seedy back alleys to Russian dance clubs – and much more. And the people you meet can be just as varied as well! All in all, I must say that the bar hopping was incredibly fun and a very positive thing about my trip.
It’s hard to pick a favorite place to visit but I think Sanlitun and the area around Workers Stadium wins. If I had to select only one bar area to visit in Beijing it’d be there: within a few blocks you can find everything from great clubs to bars to always-open pubs. Some of the tourist traps try to scam you, but as long as you don’t agree to anything or order anything without looking at the menu first you’ll be fine. Another way to be safe is to avoid all places with bright neon signs and bouncers, of course. Sanlitun and Workers Stadium has many “normal” bars as well.
In the picture above you can see a rare sight: me with a light stubble. I don’t have a trimmer, so it’s only when I shave off my beard completely that I have that four-day stubble thing going on. And that doesn’t happen very often…
The Chinese cuisine is also something I’m very happy to have experienced. Varied and interesting, some great and some…not exactly to my taste. But always interesting.
The hotel was also very good. It could have been a hell to spend six weeks in a hotel room, but the people were very helpful and everything worked excellently. Except for the water bottles. Come on! When will you get the hint that I’m not using your complimentary water?! 14 bottles plus three in the fridge. Man!
I’ve been focusing a lot on Beijing, but I actually got to see a little of Shanghai and Suzhou as well. It was expensive as diamond-studded crap, but I had to go up the Shanhai World Financial Center. Not as high as Taipei 101, but it really was a magnificent sight.
Another exciting thing that happened during my trip was the mixed martial arts competition Rising Force 13 – The Art of War. I was in China – I had to see some martial arts, after all! They had a heap of fighters and some very interesting fights (and some uneventful ones too), but the funniest part was that a Swede won the main event. I felt like a complete arse, sitting there shouting “Yeah! Go Sweeeeden!” after he won against the Chinese bloke. Thousands of Chinese supporters muttered harsh words and shook their heads, while we chuckled and hoped that we wouldn’t get assaulted.
Well, I think it’s time to wrap up things for now. This summer was great, and I hope to visit Beijing again soon. When? Who can tell… Maybe I should ask this frigging huge crystal ball found in Yashow Market!
