Time to catch up with this blog!

After Xi'an I didn't get many opportunities to sit down and write, so instead I will be writing one blog per location now that i'm back in Kuitun.

I forgot to mention that at the start actually - I am now back in Xinjiang!

Anyway, back to writing about travels. Some might say we were mad going to Beijing. After all, we had all been there in the summer, right? Well, Beijing is luckily quite a big city and there were one or two things we still wanted to do in town.

Us guys who were in previously in Xi'an left the girls for a few more days to look around and made our way back to the same hostel we had stayed upon arrival in China.

It did feel rather strange, being in the same part of Beijing, 5 months on, now completely adjusted to everything China could throw at us. I remember how horrific that part of Beijing had smelled on arrival. The street smelled of sewers and rotting food from the industrial sized bins outside all of the restaurants. Now it seemed rather lovely to be honest. Don't get me wrong, the average Chinese street does not smell of sewers and rotting food, but it must be the case that the few which do have hardened our noses to the whiffs of Chinese cities.

We also were no longer 'scared' of all the 'dodgy' looking family-run restaurants dotted about the Hutongs where the hostel is based. In reality, these run-down looking places make excellent food, quickly and cheaply. They are how we all survive back home in our projects in fact! When the big cities are stuffed to the brim with fancy banquet places, it's nice to know there will always be somewhere to get a bowl of beef noodles for 10 kuai.

Travelling about town seemed like a breeze now. There is no doubt that the underground system of the city is excellent. And at 2 kuai a journey, it's cheap too.

Not everything was so easy though. We discovered a strange newly developed dislike.

Expats.

Not all of them of course, but seeing people from the UK, the US and europe again was a reminder of how annoying we can be! The best example was our trip to a well known Expat Irish pub.

It was horrible.

We walked in, and the place was a ruckus (never had to use that word before...but it describes the whole scene nicely). The noisy 外国人 were everywhere, with their pints of Guiness in hand and there shouts of anger at the commencing pub quiz tumbled through the smoky air. We stayed for a (very very expensive) drink and promptly left after the already rubbish atmosphere was ruined by an over-excited American customer knew the answer to a baseball question. His war cry of "Ahhhh! Wo shi Meiguoren B(Insert pT Censorship Here)ES!

Dear PT censorship guys, there is a very simple puzzle for you guys to work out in the above quote. I'm sorry - I could't help myself. I'd love an email once you've worked it out, and yes, I will edit it out if you ask me.

But then it's only honest quoting!

Back to the story. And so we left. And as it happens, that is the end of the Irish bar story.

Luckily the other bits and pieces we did in Beijing were not ruined by overly excited baseball fans. For example, Wangfujing and the food street to the side of it was excellent fun.. Wangfujing itself is just a big pedestranised shopping area, but the food area is very very cool. Fancy scorpions on a stick? sure - they're deep-fried and extortionately expensive, but very possibly delicious! How about starfish and seahorse? They sell all your favourite obscure skewered animals on this street.

You just have to be careful not to get too attached to your snack on a skewer, as my photo album will show. One of us in the group did have a bit of a love affair with roasted bird on a skewer. Ok, I exaggerate, but there were a few surreal moments involving the said roasted bird on a stick.

On the subject of food, we were also lucky enough to meet up again with our PT rep, Mike, and have lunch with him. It's always going to be a treat to see Mike as he is genuinely a lovely guy and always there on the other side of an email or phone to help us out (here's a quick thanks for the help you give us guys, Mike!). What was lunch, you wonder perhaps. We ended up in a barbeque restaurant where we finally were lucky enough to taste testicle. It may seem like a foul idea, but as it happens testicle tastes rather good!

Oh yes, I somehow almost forget to mention this bit. I went to a gig While I was in Beijing this time. Alex found out a band called Havok was playing at the biggest underground venue in Beijing, so the two of us decided to go. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of thrash metal - I'm more a prog and power metal person myself - but I cannot lie, it was great fun. It just so happens that Beijing has a fairly big and growing metal scene. Even Finnish folk metal pioneers Korpiklaani had played only a month ago.

I was jealous about that one. That would have been awesome.

Anyway, perhaps the most interesting moment of the gig was the reaction to the third support act. They were a band from Taipei, and played a song that as far as I could tell had the rather un-subtle name 'Taiwan'. The band (I think at least, it's hard trying to understand Chinese in the middle of a metal gig) started the song by talking passionately about how Taiwan and mainland China were one... and the crowd seemed split on how to react to the rather political (even in the favour of the PRC's view) statement. Some shouted in agreement, others shuffled about looking awkward.

Ooh, politics at metal gigs. Nothing changes across the world!

Now, the area around the hostel is worth talking about as it was where I spent most of my time. It's not that I'm a boring person and didn't want to explore further, but that part of town is amazing for coffee and music shops. It is therefore perfect. Being in China may damage my preference for western food, but it will never take away my coffee cravings. It seems that beijing has developed a rather classy part of town just outside of the hutongs, and it persuaded me that I could easily live in Beijing if I needed to. It still feels Chinese enough, just with coffee and music shops. Perfect really!

Moving swiftly on, onto 798. We did indeed go here in the summer, but many of us liked it so much that we simply had to return to Beijing's famous art district. As with last time many weird and wonderful things were found, including the horrifically awful poster for HFC. KFC with a twist. I would suggest looking through the picture folder for that one!

There was genuinely good artwork dotted about that we didn't see last time, but I do feel we had more fun with the pieces people didn't find so awe-inspiring. One piece (that I actually really liked, but the others didn't) was a video which started when you stood in the middle of a bunker sized room. You can see the outline of a bunker door on the projection on the wall. As soon as you stand in the room, the door slowly slides open to reveal a desert scene. Wind blows and you can see nothing out of this door but sky and a windy desert. The door then closes after a while.

I liked it. I could go on an arty-farty explanation of why, but that's not what I'm writing about today!

Now I'm trying to think of what else I did, as I know there was more. So many inside jokes came out of Beijing afterall. Yesssssss. (inside joke, not creepy elongated yes.)

Ah, there we go. Our not-trip to the winter palace. Before arriving there, we got into Beihei park for the excellent cost of 2 kuai. We cheered as we went in due to the wonderful price. We had been there before, but it gives such lovely views of Beijing that we weren't going to complain about visiting again. Especially for 2 Kuai. Because 2 kuai is certainly not 15 kuai.

Which is about the cost of a trip to the Winter palace. And so follows the story of why we now measure costs in winter palaces.

After Beihei park, we arrived at the entrance to the winter palace (it's just across the road). We got to the gate and discovered with horror we had to pay to get in. It cost a whole 15 kuai. Now, 15 Kuai is not a lot of money, but we no longer like spending money very much. When you usually have a max of 50 kuai to live off a day (and most use between 20-30 on a normal day) 15 to see a world-famous sight that you may never get to see ever again and is famous because it is amazing etc, seems a bit steep.

So we in all seriousness discussed whether or not we should spend a whole 15 kuai to see a very famous sight. And we may have all decided against seeing it after 15 minutes of heated discussion half a metre away from the entrance.

We then spent exactly a winter palace on lunch a few minutes afterwards.

And there endeth the lesson (sorry, stolen a phrase used by one vol on our travels) on how we began to measure prices in winter palaces.

Finally, we did have one or two nights out in Beijing and I can give Beijing an ok review for it's night-life. Senlitun is not fun, I don't recommend it, but some of the guys did like it. Wudaokou however, or the student district, was good fun. Nice bars, one or two ok clubs and much cheaper drinks than anywhere else in Beijing.

Yet one thing is for certain. The Beijing night-life is nothing compared to the Shanghai night-life that I will be talking about after I've written the haerbin blog. The preview for the blog I can give you is simply one word.

Wow.

And so I leave you until I can find time to write the Haerbin blog. Until then!