Beijing, baby! (part 3)

So, where were we? Ah, yes, the search for Beijing's alternative voice... It is to be found at 798 Art District, a cultural and artsy wonderland that feels like an oasis in the cultural revolution desert: 

The future is in the cellar... (photo by Tina!)

that's a real cat!

After that glimpse into a younger, free-er, alternative world, we were finally convinced that there was more to Beijing than the stiff, formal, proud (and for all intents and purposes, military occupied) face it puts up for the tourists....

So we decided that Beijing could be fun too... armed with that new-found conviction, we hopped on our bikes and set off to discover Beijing by night! First stop: the very cosy Bed bar, in the Jiu Gulou Dajie Hutong, for nice music, nice people, and nice cocktails....

...then off to Sanlitun, a hip and lively part of town, to meet up with some friends of M.'s that had very nicely offered to take us out on the town. Hanging out with the locals was so much fun! And the coolest part came after the obligatory bar crawl: street food, baby!!! 

any thoughts on what this is?? 

All you got to do is grab a beer (Tsingtao, of course!), take a seat and help yourself to the pile of funny looking skewers. It's strange, delicious, and fun. And the place was jumping until dawn!

Interesting side-note: it is apparently considered very un-gentlemanly for boys to allow girls to pay anything on a night out.... and a friend of the friends of friends that we were hanging out with was almost very offended when we offered to do so. So our entire evening was, awkwardly enough, sponsored by the only guy in our group, whom we'd never seen before and hardly spoke to all night since he didn't speak a word of english (he seemed very nice though)! It felt weird and unfair, but he became so flustered when we insisted that we let him have his way. 

Art, beer, street food, and cool people: what more can we ask for on our last day in Beijing... 

Beijing, baby! (part 2)

There was of course one more obligatory stop: a visit to the forbidden city... so we made our way to Tiananmen square (full of oblivious tourists posing in front of Mao's mausoleum, happily waving tiny chinese flags...but remember this?)

Once you get into the forbidden city, however, the beauty of it all draws you in and leaves little room for anything but awe and admiration: 

After all this well maintained (and well-guarded! the military is everywhere) splendour, it was strange (but also strangely refreshing) to walk around the hutong of real Beijing, a maze of alleyways and courtyards:

A butcher's shop in one of the Hutong - this is not a glass window....

Sadly, most of these old neighbourhoods are being torn down to make room for the new Beijing: 

The city is a strange combination of splendour and poverty. But we couldn't help asking ourselves, is there more than this? Is the city more than this combination of cultural heritage, military presence, and cultural revolution memorabilia? The search for the elusive alternative Beijing led us to an amazing place - but that's enough for now...more on that next time! :-)

Beijing, baby! (part 1)

There are no very glamorous business trips in my line of work, sadly. Sometimes you get sent to Berlin, or to Paris, and that's kind of cool, but that's usually as far as the university budget will stretch. And then sometimes, out of the blue, you get shipped off to Beijing, all expenses paid, and that sort of rocks! 

Mind you, that was a couple of years ago (wow! two years ago already?), but i'm pretty sure not much has changed since then. It's not exactly a hopping city, if you know what i mean. So, this is one of my reminiscing posts... off we go to Beijing, ca. 2010! 

Let's start by getting the touristy stuff out of the way... we visited the stunning Summer palace: 

 We walked around, admired the Longevity hill, the Cloud-dispelling Hall and the Sea of Wisdom temple (you gotta love the names), 

had some green tea (that tasted like seaweed to me, and probably was seaweed for all i know), and hiked all the way up to the Tower of Buddhist Incense to take in the view.... 

It's a fascinating place, and so peaceful - right? wrong. Like every other tourist attraction, it's crawling with people: 

It can be a bit difficult to get a very zen vibe when there's about a million loud Chinese people running about. Because that's one thing i didn't know about the Chinese: they are LOUD. And that's coming from a greek. Go figure.

We went to the Ming tombs, where we learnt that the Ming dynasty liked to be buried in red coffins, in scary underground mausoleums: 

We also learned that modern day chinese tourists like to walk around in disciplined groups with neat matching baseball caps... 

....that take loudness to a whole new level, since every guide carries one of these babies:

sign inside the Ming tombs museum!

From there we got a very confused taxi--driver to take us to Badaling, to take a walk on the wall. Small tip: the first impression can be not quite what you'd expect, since the ten square meters around the entrance are crawling (i guess that's our word of the day.. if everything in Copenhagen was stylish, everything in Beijing was crawling with people. true story), with dressed-up chinese (high heels and everything) that hop on the wall, take a picture, then hop off: 

So while you're standing there, between shouting Chinese, getting shoved around, trying to dodge the cameras or posing for pictures with them, you might not immediately get that feeling of grandeur and magnificence you've been expecting. But walk a few meters down and the crowd thins - tourist groups don't venture any further, and only the brave (like us :-) ) keep walking....

and walking... 

 and walking.... 

NOTE: Another thing i did not know is that the Wall is NOT flat. It's got steps EVERYWHERE!! 

And it's a bloody tough hike. But when you get to the end, and you're all alone with the mountains and the wind, it becomes what you've imagined it to be: magnificent, humbling, and beautiful. 

(i'll leave you with that for now, but stay tuned for more Beijing!)