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Published: February 12th 2009
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We stayed 3 nights in Primrose's great apartment, hidden away down some side streets a short walk from Chaoyangmen subway station. Like most of Beijing the setting was largely grey and bleak, and the apartment blocks had a rather strong resemblance to a pile of mouse cages one on top of the other. Because of this monotony it took a while to figure out how to get there without being confused by the sameness of everything.
The apartment was quite big, and while nothing really seemed to work 100% (especially the kitchen sink, the pipes from which dripped into a large vase that had to emptied whenever it was getting too full), it was still very cosy and comfortable.
On the first night there we went out to dinner at a pizza place in some alleyway district beside a frozen lake. It was ablaze with neon lights, and presumedly in summer full of nightclubbers, but with the weather so bitter there weren't many people around except for touts trying to get business. The pizza was delicious but the night not particularly eventful.
The next morning Lex and I went to the Beijing Sightseeing Tour Group (or a bus
The Great Wall
Notice the ad for the beijing olympics... service called something obvious like that) to go to the Great Wall of China. We spent a lot of that day waiting around. Before the bus even left the place we'd already been waiting at least 1.5 hours, much of which actually in the bus. It turned out to be one of THOSE tours, one of those tours that stops at a lot of useless places on the way (and very loud Chinese commentary at all times on the bus). We stopped for lunch. That was alright, it was a buffet, and while the fish looked a lot like vegetable and I ate it, at least the dumpling-type thing was filling, and it was included in the price of the tour. But then we stopped at a jade market, with ridiculously high prices. Then we stopped at the 'Ming Dynasty Wax Museum'. We had to pay extra to get in. Lex and I didnt, and so had to wait the 45 minutes alloted to this particular stopover outside, in weather flirting with zero degrees, because we weren't allowed to stay on the bus.
We noticed two girls also trying to stay on the bus, the only other westerners on
the trip. It turned out they were Finnish air hostesses on a stopover on Beijing. At least their company outside the wax museum made the wait a bit more amusing. Finally, we made it to the Great Wall. It was pretty good. We didnt quite need the 2 hours they gave us, mainly because we were too lazy to walk very far up the wall. It was pretty steep, and the whole thing seemed pretty similar looking, so we didnt see the point. We instead went and got a coffee. But it was picturesque, if a bit touristy (notice the Beijing Olympics advertisement in my photographs). By the time we got back to Beijing it was already getting dark. It had been a long day.
The next day was our last full one in Beijing. Unluckily, Primrose had accidentally locked us into the apartment in the morning, and Nick was spending the whole morning at job interviews, so we couldnt start the day until she had her lunch break from language school. Just an excuse to get some washing done really. Once we got out of the apartment, we headed straight to Factory 798, the artist's district of Beijing,
absolutely full of one storey buildings transformed into galleries.
There was certainly some great art there, and I wrote down the names of quite a few artists that I want to look into further when I get home. There was so many galleries though I hardly feel we scraped the surface, but they were getting of less quality the further we went on, and the weather was getting cold, so we called it a day late afternoon.
That night we all went out because Lex and I were leaving the next day. Primrose had some homework to do, so Nick, Lex and I headed out of the subway to some well known international students' bar district. Before we had left, Primrose had been telling us how she came across a guy having a seizure on the street that day, with blood coming out of the back of his head, and the trouble she'd had trying to get anyone to help her, how little the police had done and how long it took for the ambulance to come. Apparently everyone just stood in a wide circle, and we'd been discussing how this was probably due to a fear, whether imagined or real, that to single yourself out in an emergency situation in china will get you in trouble. We saw the pool of blood covered with a policeman's cap (used to cushion the man's head) on our way to the station.
It was therefore incredible that that very same night at the subway station we found ourselves caught up in a fist fight that was going on between two local men. One had broken the others' nose, and the other guy had gotten really angry and vicious. At one point the fight was coming right towards me. All I could do was run. It amazed me that despite there being guards pretty much everywhere in china, there wasnt one here on the subway to break up this fight. No one was trying to break up the fight. It broke up of its own accord, because I'm pretty sure the guy who broke the other one's nose didnt want to fight. It started again when the other guy gave him a flying kick in the back. I'm serious. A guard finally came shortly after that. Thank God Primrose hadnt been with us, a bit too much for one day...
Anyway, we made it to the bar district without any other dramas. And had a good time at various bars (and a great street vendor on the way!). There was one called Propaganda which gave 3 free drinks to girls, but had pretty dodgy r & b music. We left to find D22, an indie live music venue, but it was closed, so went back hit the r & b dancefloor...
The next morning there was a knock at the door at around 10:30am. It was two representatives from the police. Prim and Nick had been trying unsuccessfully for a few days to register their residence in China, which needs to be done within 24 hours. But they needed to bring the landlord and lease with them, and not knowing where either of these things were had gotten a local to help them sort out the situation over the phone. So the police came to check that they really did live there, unannounced on a weekday morning. I felt really bad because I'd opened the door, and wasnt registered as living there, but luckily we had the train ticket to Xi'An to prove we were leaving that day and didnt intend to live as illegal aliens on the floor of the apartment. Let's hope communist societies dont have a vendetta against sleepovers...
Amusingly when they first tried and failed to register, Primrose asked them whether it would be alright to come back after 24 hours had passed, what if they didnt have the record that they had tried to register in time? "Don't worry" the man said, in a knowing, and in my imagination, creepy communist government official's voice "We know who you are"
So after all that was sorted out, Nick and Prim went out to their job/ school, and Lex and I went to the train station for Xi'An...
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