China (Day Two)

Before I go into the (roughly) verbatim journal translation, I should maybe set some context. I went to China during my school's vacation for 15 days in February. I took the trek alone, armed only with a backpack, my Nintendo DS, and a thoroughly-skimmed Lonely Planet. I moved mountains, I dried up rivers.

Day Two (advance apologies for being banal):

"I woke up originally at 8:00, but fell back asleep until I was called about my safety deposit box. (I guess I was more tired than I originally thought). I managed to get out of the hotel by 9:30, and hopped in a cab towards the Summer Palace. Traffic is terrible here (then again, it's the holiday season), and people drive bearing no mind towards lanes. Taxis rarely have working seatbelts so the whole thing can be unnerving. We eventually got there-- maybe 45 minutes for what seemed like 10 of actual movement.

The Summer Palace was by no means underwhelming, but it was disappointing that I came in Winter because most of the waterways were dry and there wasn't a flower in sight; I'd imagine being here in the Summer or Spring would be mind-blowing. I hit most of the major sites within, and continually kept running into the same Canadian family. I took a billion photos (several which are posted here), hiked all day, and listened to a combination of Nick Drake and Howard Stern on my iPod. Had a massive stack of pork dumplings (three times what you'd get at an American Chinese place (or Korean mandu place) for only 27 RMB) and some tea (probably just a novelty and nothing to marvel over, but the tea was actually just a seed dropped into my cup, which then sprouted into a 'peach flower'.)

I was also abducted by a girl selling paintings, trying to sell me on the idea that they were all done by students at a famed calligraphy school; I found later on in the Forbidden City that this is a popular scam at every site in Beijing, and thankfully I got out of there pretty quickly with no money spent. Was dragged around a little, too, on Shuzhou Street (a market surrounding a man-made lake), but again, I wasn't held up for long.

I left the Summer Palace in the late afternoon to hit Frank's Place, a rugby bar in the Changxou district; understand, by the way, that while there are a few staple Korean dishes that I enjoy, I dearly miss the variety of food that I can get in the West (in Pusan, you can count the number of non-franchise foreign restaurants on maybe two hands). I wandered aimlessly (a pattern that would change once I got out of Beijing), passing two men who were acting the part of falconer to some pigeons. Each man would throw a bird up in the air, pull out a blowgun filled with seed, and shoot the seed into the sky; the bird would seemingly catch the seed in mid-air and return to the man's palm. Pretty impressive... definitely more entertaining than the Ajumma crooners you find on the streets here periodically.

I also saw men sitting along the sidewalk getting their heads shaved, but when I went to take a photo, I was shooed away by a woman with a broom.

I found the street for Frank's Place, but went to a huge clothing market across the street first. In the parking lot, I was lured to a car where a man was selling pirated DVDs; the only thing that looked like it would be a quality purchase was "Eagle vs Python", but I only was willing to offer 3 RMB and he seemed offended, slapping me on top of the head with the plastic case.

The store was better, definitely a bargainer's dream. It also made me realize just how many foreigners are here, and they're from all over. You hear accents and languages of all kinds here, far different from Korean cities. I haggled well, but bought nothing (I was still gun-shy at this stage of the trip); one girl got pretty upset with me after I convinced her to sell me a 480 RMB "Northface" backpack for 140 RMB and then backed out of the deal. As I was leaving, she continually yelled, "Crazy!" and pointed in my direction. Awkward times.

Frank's Place had closed down, according to the host at The Den, a similar rugby-themed bar/restaurant. It was an okay replacement, I guess-- classier than O'Brien's (Pusan's ex-pat equivalent), with a larger and better food menu. I had some Bangers and Mash, as well as a few glasses of Tsingtao (pretty cheap here). As expected, a slew of foreigners were there; they're an awful lot more cosmopolitan than the ones in Seoul even."

(An aside: This has got to read like drying paint, I'd imagine. Just skip to photos and videos unless you're my mom.)

"From there, I wandered down the street and found a few places of note:

1) The Red Club - from the outside it looked like it might be a club dedicated to Kickball, but instead it turned out to be soccer. There was a bar with cheap drinks inside a tent, with two adjoining indoor soccer fields where locals played in leagues. A cool idea that probably would never work in Pusan due to lack of space.

2) Bar Bus - A double-long bus with several beer ads pasted alongside it. I went in to get a drink and was immediately in conversation with a Nigerian DJ; from the way he was talking, I knew he would ask me if I wanted drugs within the first five minutes. I went with the "You never know when you might get drug-tested in Korea" routine, and the moment Nelly came on the stereo, I knew it was time to go.

I realized at this point that my hotel (The Friendship Hotel) was pretty distant from most of what was happening in Beijing, and thankfully I had only booked two days, planning on spending the latter half of my time there in a hostel closer to the center of town. I headed home, took a bath, and went to bed early so I could check out with plenty of time to explore tomorrow."

Okay. Two days down, 13 to go. Things picked up once I got to a hostel, if I remember right.