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We've arrived
Safe in our hotel in Beijing - Chester, Jocelyn, Joakim, Patrick, me and Alex The first week of May in China is (yet another) national holiday. They’ve only just come back to work after New Year, it’s nearly as bad (good?) as Thailand, where they celebrate everything possible, regardless of the religious or cultural incongruence. There is a music festival held in Beijing every year during the week, which Patrick, Joakim and Jocelyn were going to, along with a random collection of people who turned up at various stages; Alex arrived from the Three Gorges on the Tuesday, a bloke called Chester, a friend of Patrick, came from Xi’an for the first few days, Patrick’s brother also arrived on the Wednesday. Joe came for a couple of days, but his flight left before the actual concert. So, with our hard sleeper tickets bought and booked for the Friday night train, we bid farewell to the CCS house, and headed off to Beijing. We stopped at the supermarket, and stocked up on supplies: Brie, bread, red wine, Pringles, all the essentials. It began to get a bit fraught at 17.13, our train was leaving at 17.29, and we were still in the centre of town, being waved at by thousands of taxis who refused to stop.
We eventually got two, one for the people and one for all the bags we had, three months worth of Joe’s stuff, and one of Alex’s bags to make his Gorges trip slightly easier. Joakim and I got to the station first, then discovered between us we had all the tickets. He went inside to try and stall the train if necessary, whilst fending off calls from the others asking if we wanted them to buy beer. They arrived at 17.26, and the four of us legged it through the station, carting bags, bread and 17 bottles of beer behind us. We saw Kim standing half-in, half-out of our carriage, I have never been so happy to see a Swede! We dumped the stuff on one of the bunks, and settled in. Hard sleeper carriages are pretty fun if you’re with a group. I came back from Beijing before in a soft sleeper (because I’m a softie, and yes, I know I still haven’t blogged the week on the Three Gorges and Shanghai and Beijing - I’m on it). The soft sleepers are four beds - two up, two down - in separate compartments with closing doors, TV, individual lights
and all that. Hard sleepers are six beds cordoned off, stacked three high, onto an open corridor thing. Plenty comfortable enough, but open to the elements. Which, if the elements are a bunch of rowdy Westerners, is not fun at all. The journey started nice enough, bit of a picnic, few glasses of wine…almost civilised. The lights go off at ten, so Kim, Joe and I headed off to the restaurant car to drink the whiskey we’d bought. Instant bad vibes, we got serious glares from everyone, Kim was wearing a shirt that says, in Chinese, the Chinese masses are not to be trifled with, which usually gets a laugh, but in this case someone came up and poked him in the chest and said ‘you’d better remember that’. Nice! The evening grew steadily more tense, so we called it a night, dragging a whiskey-sodden Joe behind us. Chester, the little dote, took the topmost bunk, so I was in the middle. I was woken up first by Kim tugging on my toe, asking if I was awake because he couldn’t sleep. Then again at 5, by a guard, who pointed at Joe’s bed. Which was empty. Then I heard
loud snoring coming from under the bed, and sure enough, he was asleep on the floor under the board. We kicked him a few times, then Patrick and I hoisted him onto the bed, sitting on him so he couldn’t go anywhere and cause more trouble. We got in about 7am, listened to the very important train announcement that said, in English, to please use standard pronunciation while in Beijing (useful-if you're listening in English, chances are this isn't urgent information for you), traipsed down the highway in hopes of finding a taxi that wouldn’t rip us off, armed with nothing but a text message to tell us where to go. We got there eventually, somehow Patrick and Chester arrived first, though we took the first taxi. Something probably to do with the random pause for about ten minutes by the side of the road for no reason.
Four hours of kip later, and we headed out again. Quick wander to Tiananmen Square - it really is just an expanse of concrete, and we were ready for some food and maybe a small, cold beer. I don’t really like Beijing, it’s very big, takes even longer than usual to
get stuff done, and doesn’t feel very atmospheric. The Chinese believe your personality is moulded by the environment around you, and I suppose if the most dominant thing within 100 miles is a bland area of concrete, it’s bound to make you somewhat nondescript. And they’re a lot ruder to foreigners there, as they see many more of them. We were all feeling dozy, almost contemplating going home for a nap at 9pm (not a good idea, we would never have gone out again), so bought some Red Bull and gin (yum), and drank it whilst eating piles of dumplings outside a random food place south of the Square. We wandered around town for a while, found Bar Street, left Bar Street rapidly - full of Western travelling non-travellers and bad music, and eventually ended up at home again. Joe left for Florida the next day, really pushing home the fact that my time in China has come to an end, with still no concrete job offer. Kim, Patrick and Chester went to check out the festival area, however, I found I had no way of contacting them to meet up later, so sat in the hotel room for two
Before the festival
Kim, Joc and Patrick hours, as it grew darker and darker. You also need the key, which I didn’t have, to make the lights and TV work, so ended up reading by mobile phone light until they came back to get me. Another evening of random amblings, and all was well.
The festival started the next day at two, by the time we had found Kim, bought supplies of Red Bull and vodka, watched as Jocelyn phoned about seventy-two people for no apparent reason, and had noodles, it was about four. We headed out on the buses, which were packed, and took forever. Then we discovered we couldn’t bring any drink in, not even the water, in case the bottles were used to create an enormous missile that could attack Japan, or something. So we sat on the grass outside, drank everything we had as quickly as possible, and stumbled in.
There was music, of what it consisted, I couldn’t tell you. It was so much fun, though drinking that much booze in such a short space of time was not hugely clever, even though we repeated the pattern for the next two days. Lots happened, but they are the sort of
After the festival
Even Red Bull couldn't keep us awake! things that are only funny if you were there, so I won’t make you read insignificant incidences about people you don’t know. Just a lot of talking rubbish, laying in the grass, running around taking pictures with random Chinese people with cool hair…that was really the pattern for the next few days. Alex left on the fourth, as did I, getting the train (soft sleeper) back to Xi’an for my last 24 hours here.
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Kieran
non-member comment
Huh?
Leaving already?? But you just got there??!