Korean BBQ, Soju and DVD bangs

China has blocked access to all blogspots and other blog sites so I'm writing through an illegal hidden connection. Ridiculous.

Korea was great. I spent the first day in Icheon, the town where Mikhail works. We went to a pottery festival, ate Korean BBQ and drank soju with the principal and vice principal of Mikhail's school. After a lot of shots we went to sing karaoke and then hopped on a bus to Seoul. Icheon is only about an hour southeast of Seoul so we got there with enough time to continue our night with a few beers. It rained the entire next day so we felt justified in taking a bus tour of the city instead of walking around. That night we went to a DVD bang (bang means room) and chose from the limited english selection. The next day was nicer so we hiked up to some outlook points to get a view of the city. Seoul is massive.

Music Festival

May 1st-3rd is a huge holiday weekend in China and I had all three days off work. I went shopping on Friday and biking on Saturday. Sunday was spent at one of the many music festivals taking place around the country. The Strawberry Festival was the biggest music festival in Beijing that weekend. We spent the day eating kebabs for 5 kuai each (about 80 cents) and drinking beers, also at 5 kuai a piece. Oh yea and there were also some bands playing. The biggest band that day was Deerhoof (who I've heard of thanks to Jerry). They were really good. They were the only american band playing that day so it was really cool to get a chance to hear some of the local chinese indie rock.

Beijing Bike Tour

t

I convinced one of my chinese collegues to take me on a bicycle tour of Beijing. We rented bikes and rode around for over 8 hours. It was scary at first but then I got used to weaving though the traffic and knocking over pedestrians and it became quite fun. Renee took me through loads of neighborhoods that I never would have found by myself. One of our stops was a buddhist pagoda where we stumbled upon a birthday celebration for an important buddha. There was free food and tons of people. We rode through one of Beijing's Universities and a couple of small markets. When we passed in front of the Forbidden City it was right before the changing of the guards so we were allowed to ride past but not stop so it was difficult to get pictures.

Pictures (in order) 1: muslim temple 2: buddhist pagoda 3: capital museum 4: Drum Tower 5: Forbidden City 6: National Theater

Mountains and Temples

Chinese Delicacies

These cicada's are compliments of a small kiosk on small eats street located just off Wanfujing shopping street. The chinese guy selling the "treats" was pretty impressed when I ordered them.
My chinese friends are very surprised when I inform them that it is uncommon to eat the organs of animals in the United States. This past weekend they slyly ordered some pig intestine without my knowledge. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either. I wouldn't eat it again. They also wanted me to try some blood tofu. This, however, I successfully avoided.

Mom's Visit

My mom came to visit me in Beijing the last week in March! I was able to take a few days off of work and we went to all the major sights around the city. The pictures are from the Great Wall and the Summer Palace. We also went to the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City and a couple of fancy roast duck restaurants.

Dirt Market

Panjiayuan Market, or the dirt market, is really close to my apartment. This is the coolest outdoor market in Beijing. Vendors sell everything from communist memorabilia to jade jewelry to wooden furniture in addition to various other items claiming to be antiques. I bought a couple of (probably fake) jade carved happiness balls with plans to return soon for more shopping and bargaining. Bargaining in Beijing is an art that is quickly mastered if you're determined to get a fair price. Initially vendors will often ask more than 10 times the price that they eventually sell something for.

Olympic Park

Olympic Park definitely deserves multiple trips as the buildings look completely different from day to night. I've already been there twice and I still haven't seen all the buildings.

Bikes

Beijing is extremely flat so biking is very popular. Bike lanes are everywhere and there is even a bike share system in place if you don't have a bike of your own.

798

798 Art District or Dashanzi Art District, is located northeast of Central Beijing. (Take subway line 10 to airport express, then taxi) This is a really cool area that is loaded with shops, galleries, restaurants, designers and street art.

The original bauhaus styled factory buildings were built in the 1950's and have all been restored and converted to house Beijing's modern art scene.
We spent the entire day exploring this uniquely pedestrian friendly part of town. The restaurants and cafes provided a good mixture of local and western options so we indulged with sandwiches and smoothies while we had the chance.
.

Apartment 1303

Here's a small clip to give you an idea of my apartment building. You could say it has a lot of "character" The building has 22 floors and I live on the 13th floor with two roomates. Normally buildings in china will leave out the 4th, 13th, 14th, 24th floors because these are unlucky numbers but our building has apparently overlooked this. The nearest subway stop is a 30 minute walk so i usually end up taking the bus to work.

Animal Activists Beware

We ate dog meat last night at the Korean restaurant beside our apartment. It was very tasty. We also had some sushi that had loads of wasabi hidden between the fish and the rice. Unfortunately we discovered it the hard way and I thought my head was going to burst into flames. Tricky Koreans. I've also tried some donkey meat which was good too.

Chinese Salsa

Wednesday night the chinese girls from work took us to a few clubs. The first place we went had a mexican band playing salsa music. We thought this was strange for our first chinese club so they took us to another club called cargo which played outdated american dance tracks. Awesome.

I'm Famous

Outside the forbidden city some asian kids asked to take their pictures with me. I don't even think they thought I was famous. I guess they haven't seen a lot of white people...or maybe they just thought I looked funny.

North?

My first 3 nights in Beijing were spent in a hostel south of Tian'anmen Square in the Xuanwu district. The hostel was very hard to find as it was buried within one of the city's many hutongs. The winding roads within the hutong do not have english names and they are not accurately portrayed on many maps. When I finally ventured out I was so turned around that instead of walking north I walked south and came across this amazing park, known as Taoranting Park.