Cool cool Beijing (Part I)

In more than just the weather sense, I've recently had the privilege of travelling to Beijing for work again and it is one cool place to visit. I enjoy it even more in winter than in summer. Sure my fingers might freeze and stick together or my toes will feel numb, but generally, the weather isn't super cold that you can't do anything.

I flew into Beijing on the Sunday because I thought I'd done enough sightseeing in the last trip back in May. And then followed a week of work which is what I get paid to do and having dinner with my workmates every night. The food is quite interesting with a distinctly Sichuan style hot and spicy. My stomach took a night or two to get used to it. Funny thing is Sichuan province is actually tucked away a few thousand kilometres south of Beijing.

My camera has gone to camera heaven (or hell) so all I had was my trusty mobile phone. Here are some pictures of the food. I cannot remember what they're called so just enjoy the pictures. The populace of Beijing, or most China in this case, do not speak English. So a trip to the restaurants without my Mandarin speaking mates usually entails lots of finger pointing at various pictures in the menu without knowing if the meat is beef or yak or goat or whatever.


We also visited some of the night establishments in an area called Huo Hai. Definitely not for the faint hearted or timid. As soon as you get off the taxi, touts from all over will be offering their services in the form of taking you to the 'best' establishments i.e. the bar that pays them to do it. A note of caution here, I wouldn't recommend visiting the bars or nightclubs in any area of Beijing alone unless you are familiar with the local customs.

A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) was a victim when he visited a KTV nightclub on his own. He was there for a about an hour and somehow ended up with a bill for 8 cases of beer which came up to about 8000 yuan or roughly equivalent to AUD1,225. The bouncers refused to let him go and so it was a cat-and-mouse game for the rest of the night. Eventually they escorted him back to his hotel where he advanced some cash from the hotel to pay off part of the bill. They then took his mobile phone as a 'hostage' so that he can contact them to pay off the rest of the amount. Of course my friend decided to write off his old junk mobile phone.

Back to Hou Hai, it's a street full of bars and situated next to a lake. Very beautiful at night for a walk but like I mentioned, the touts will not leave you alone. I was there in a biggish group of five with a local so they left us alone. The bar we visited was just like any other bar but it was weird the way they operated. For a popular bar (there was no place to sit when we got there), they have no soft drinks or beer on tap. Every drink that required coke for example, meant popping open a new can and pouring it out. If someone ordered a margaritha (sp?), the bartender will be busy turning the handle on the ice crusher. Washing glasses was manual in a sink at the bar. Go figure...

Lunch time is over. To be continued when I feel like it. :-)

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