So, I’ve left Tokyo, and we had an amazing last dinner there at a sushi place, and I think both Kaj and my new favourite dish is crab bowels. Stewart, a friend of his, and I decided we needed to see some bits of Tokyo, so we went out for a few drinks. You haven’t been to a city till you’ve been propositioned, and I guess you can say, we’ve been to Tokyo. Half-price beers at a bar somewhere, were what we settled for. Quick, albeit short sleep, and I was up for my 7am departure from the hotel.
Arrived in Beijing, almost after a whole day of flying, because I had to make a stop over at Shanghai. Was amazed that China Eastern Airlines isn’t as bad as they’re touted to be (wait for my next update about the airline industry, which I typed up on my E61i, in offline mode). Upon landing, they had a banner looking for folk that came from Tokyo. There were like 9 folk, all of whom got a nice un-crowded bus. The rest were put into another bus that was packed full, and they hadn’t even arrived to collect their bags when I’d left the airport!
Beijing hasn’t changed, too much. Memories just started flowing back, the moment I hit the car park in the airport. Traffic is just as bad, drivers probably have gotten worse, there’s way more honking now, and crossing the road is always a death-wish. Arrived at my hotel, which was amazing - I can heartily recommend the JianGuo Hotel to anyone needing a hotel in Beijing. Fairly cheap, very fast Internet access, but of course, filtered. I just noticed that Flickr was disabled as well, which annoyed me. But uploads worked - 300-400KB/s!!!
On Thursday, I caught up with Ken and Michael, for a quick Peking Duck dinner, nearby to the hotel. Ken and I continued on the night with some drinks, at a place opposite my hotel, and we had lots of Chivas, and a late night :P Short sleep later, I was up, awake, and ready for presenting all day. Which I did with no problem, and to good crowds.
Party people, its Friday night. First up, dinner with Grace. Good food, and she even gave me a tiny gift with regards to the Beijing Olympics. Of course, this made me a little worried, and I felt weird, as I had no gift handy. So I promised to send her a print of herself, since I was walking around with my 30/1.4 and SLR then. George, is now officially my new go-to guy for being an excellent party animal. Short stay in the hotel later, and a quick shower, and I was out to Propaganda. This is apparently the new Vics (which has lost its popularity, after apparently the bouncers beating up some foreigners a little after I left Beijing the last time).
Propaganda is amazing. Probably also because I met someone amazing (pre-Propaganda). Haha. Its a watering hole upstairs, and downstairs, is a really crowded and packed dance floor. R&B music, along with some oldies (like Michael Jackson) is what the crowd basically dances to. It got too hot, too quickly, so I had to move back upstairs pretty quickly.
The Chinese don’t understand what a “Chivas and water” is, so I just enjoyed gin tonics. Weird drink, last I remember there were rumours that it made men impotent, but who cares. It was my “China drink”…
Left early, because I was to speak at SFD the next day, crashed at about 3.30am, up again not long after, as I had morning meetings at 9am. Grace came by again, and then with the company driver, we took a quick tour of the upcoming Olympic village, and then headed off to Tsinghua University. Hung out with the cool folk there, bringing me back memories of my BLUG attendance. Lalo was there, and I’ve now scored a small-ish SFD t-shirt, in pink. I’ll wear this soon, and promise to post a photo up I’m sure :)
Spoke, to a large-ish audience. Ensured that I got them to stand up and poke each other first, because while sitting down, I noticed some folk dozing off in the previous talk. I was the only one whom spoke in English, and there was a translator available, so I think they stayed awake, mostly. Plus I had the occasional joke thrown it (I find it amusing that when you mention the joke, some folk laugh first, because they get it, and then the vast majority laughs later, because of the translation :P).
Dinner was very nice, for all the SFD speakers, event organisers and so forth. 15 courses or something, I found it hard to read. Jade, someone we all just met, who works at Via, has offered to do some form of language exchange with me, which she assures me can be done via MSN, so I gladly obliged. Since she was so nice, I gave her a Moo card as well :)
Back to the hotel, and within 15 minutes, I’m out again with George. He’s already picked up Jia Jia, and a friend, and we head to a place near Suzie Wong’s, a sports bar. I play darts with her, something I’ve not done in years. Surprisingly, probably by some stroke of luck, I win several times. The night quickly turns into one of drinking games being played amongst all (Claude joins us too), and all I can say is we have a lot of fun. We then decide that supper is due, and for some reason things like ducks tongue, and random other recycled parts of animals are ordered. They’re all spicy as well. Fair enough, I just drink the egg & tomato soup…
Another late night, that ends at 4.30am or something, and I’m up again to have breakfast, pack quickly, and head off to the airport at 10am. Reminder to self: when leaving Beijing, you clear customs first, then only go and get your boarding pass. Long flight ahead to Munich, cramped up in coach on Lufthansa. I attempt to sleep, eat food, and get work done (consequently, bombarding people later with lots of email). Arrive in Munich and find my connecting to Frankfurt has been cancelled.
Easily fixed, I get a new, albeit delayed flight, and arrive so quickly, they could hardly serve most passengers drinks. Attempt to get a train and actually succeed. There was a persistent beggar in the train station whom only spoke English. I felt bad for him, but at that stage, I could only offer him Yen or Kuai/RMB.
Reached Heidelberg, got a taxi, and the hotel was about to close up the reception. So this was a in the nick of time sort of thing. Apparently I wasn’t booked in till the next day, so I’m glad they just sold me the room outright anyways. Internet is 5 Euros/24hrs here. The room is typically European, something I’d have expected to get in Tokyo (but didn’t).
Looking for food at 11.30pm is hard, but I did find a bar, and hopped in for some local beer on tap. Bunch of Spanish students were watching the basketball match against Russia. Russia won, however, they still danced on the streets later, saying “banana” and “ok”. They got me to stand in the middle and do a dance with them too. I’ve got some form of crappy video from the N73, so I’ll YouTube it soon enough.
Theme of the trip: 4 in the morning by Gwen Stefani, and Cool as well. Oh, I bought headphones at the airport, because I wanted to watch Californication in the plane…
I’ve got boils on my toes, thanks to the heat/sweating in Japan/China. Voltaren cream, and band-aids to the rescue. More to come soon, as I’m about to have dinner (or at least look for some dinner).
See where in the world I am, via my Dopplr profile. Or Facebook’s Dopplr interface.
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