:no2:
:runaway:
Oh hey, someone who spent a while in China. I’m in Beijing at the moment teaching stats for three weeks, and I’ve got a lot of time to kill between classes (measured in days rather than hours). I’m near the communication tower, and got up there when it was nice - is there anything else I should try and do?
Also, if I go to somewhere like Tianyi, how much of what I get is what it says (e.g. a place sells silk scarves, are they actually silk)? I have no idea and I don’t speak the language, I just want to wander around and point at things I like.
:no2:
I’m sorry, hope you enjoy the lung cancer you’re bringing home.
and I’ve got a lot of time to kill between classes (measured in days rather than hours). I’m near the communication tower, and got up there when it was nice - is there anything else I should try and do?
You aren’t really close to much of anything around there. The west side of town is completely dead. I haven’t lived in Beijing since 2008, and given the pace of change in that city, anywhere I used to go probably doesn’t exist anymore. I would check out http://www.thebeijinger.com/ to find out what events are going on around town, and go strike up whatever suits your fancy. BJ is a pretty cosmopolitan place these days, you can find just about anything from sightseeing historical monuments to ultra modern art, expense western fine dining, and international music acts coming through town on the regular. But I’ll give it a try:
- There’s a street called “gui jie” (ghost street) that is very cool at night. Lots of authentic beijing style restaurants. It’s within the central city, north of the forbidden city.
- Temple of Heaven is cool, go early and you can play hacky sack or badminton with the old folks (they will kick your ass)
- There’s a bar street up north around the universities right outside the Wudaokou subway station on line 13. It’s where I used to get plastered like 3-4 times a week. I must have gotten laid dozens of times just showing up there and being white…but that was like 10 years ago, before everyone and their mothers were spending a gap year in Beijing “studying”. But since you’re Irish I assume you like getting drunk, and you can definitely achieve that around there. There’s a billion other bar districts around the city as well, but they’re mostly in the east and north. I’d avoid “sanlitun” if I were you - search my post history and you’ll find a picture of my face after a night of heavy drinking there. Wouldn’t recommend it.
Also, if I go to somewhere like Tianyi, how much of what I get is what it says (e.g. a place sells silk scarves, are they actually silk)? I have no idea and I don’t speak the language, I just want to wander around and point at things I like.
lol…you have a 0 percent chance of getting real silk there. Real silk will be just as expensive there as it is back home probably. That being said, you can find all kinds of funny and crazy gift and souvenir ideas in those markets, esp. up on the upper floors, so I’d say it’s still worth a look. Bargain hard, and don’t be surprised when they reach out and touch you when you try to leave, personal space doesn’t exist in the same sense we have it there.
Also, do not go to any tea houses with cute girls that ask you for the love of god.
Why?
Beijing definitely feels really cosmopolitan. I’ve mostly just been eating in the canteen though, I’m here on someone else’s dime so I’m pretty much just going to spend their money unless I have to. Last week was pretty nice, and today is good but goddamn in between was ugly. Last week was also more fun because the main guy they’d invited over was still here so they were buying us drinks. I guess I should go and find a bar someplace. It would help if I spoke literally any Chinese but I was asked if I wanted to go three weeks before the departure date. I know hello and thank you.
I have yet to be approached. I must be truly hideous.
How often do you get a chance to spend a month in China? Get out and enjoy it you silly man! At least do the most basic touristy shit like the forbidden city, summer palace, and great wall. A subway ticket is like literally 30 cents and all the signs/announcements are in Chinese and English. Here is a subway map in English, you can also get an app to put on your phone:
http://explorebj.com/subway/#s1103/
Regarding the tea house scam, it’s only going to happen in the most touristy areas, especially the Wangfujing pedestrian shopping street. It’s not going to happen to you in the neighborhood you are in where there are essentially zero tourists.
Haha, I do plan to - I just didn’t feel like doing it during the really bad smog (and last week we were just being taken around places). I am definitely going to do the basic touristy things, that was about 75% of the reason I accepted.
Thanks for the subway map! That will be really helpful.
It’s crazy to see how much the subway has expanded in only like seven years. When I lived there, the only lines were 1 (red), 2 (blue), and 13 (yellow). Shanghai’s metro is even more absurd.
I decided to walk to tiananmen square from my hotel today, which was a pretty enjoyable stroll. I saw bits of Beijing I probably wouldn’t have seen at all otherwise, lots of tiny wiggly streets that would probably be considered dangerous places to walk back home but seemed fine here. In one park I passed there was a group of old people singing and playing music so I chilled out there for a while. I came across one Starbucks, then around the corner another Starbucks. I wasn’t even surprised.
The square and the forbidden city were pretty enjoyable places to be. A cute girl did ask if I’d like to go for coffee. I declined and got the subway home because fuck me Beijing is big. Most of the time it just seems like a fairly large city but I was walking along the edge of a park for the better part of an hour that, looking at my map, I thought was about 20 minutes to walk. The subway is indeed pretty easy to use.
Good job, kid. There may be hope for you yet.
I went to the Summer Palace today. That place was amazing, the lake was half-frozen and the wind off it was pretty freezing but it was totally worth it. Completely different to the rest of my experience of Beijing. I think it would probably be pretty awful in the main tourist season because of how crowded it could get (I imagine), there were times while I was there I actually couldn’t hear traffic or people for the first time since touching down.
The amount of people with awesome cameras made me feel really shitty about just having my old samsung galaxy with its pretty awful camera, but it’s too late to do anything about that now.