Why George Michael stopped me going to Beijing
Most of my mental images of Beijing come from the 1984 film "Wham! in China: Foreign Skies": a documentary following George Michael and the gang on their tour as the first western pop group allowed into China.
Beijing does not look good in this movie: drab tourists posing in front of Mao's portrait, huge expanses of Forbidden City (which make you wonder whether it was forbidden to put anything cool in there), a Great Wall packed solid with people, Andrew Ridgeley in a tartan suit...
This weekend though I'm trying to put all of that behind me. On Friday night I'm taking the sleeper train from Shanghai Station to Beijing.
Being a complete newbie in the Northern Capital I'll probably spend most of my time going to the major tourist sites, paying 8,000RMB for a cup of green tea in a backstreet "art gallery", shopping for horrible silk pyjamas covered in dragons, and constantly checking that my passport is still in the "travel safe" strapped around my midriff.
On the other hand, most of the people reading this have probably been to Beijing a bunch of times. So if both of you could leave suggestions on where to go, that would be very helpful.
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nothing wrong with being a newbie..just make sure you dont stand too close to a naked flame in those highly flammable silk (nylon) pyjamas. Pack a snack and thermos of coffee for the forbidden city...and its actually worth being accosted by one of the touts there and getting a day guide to the great wall - not expensive..
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So, how was the trip????
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I'll write a blog about it later on. But in a word: Ifrickin'loveBeijingwaaah!!
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can't wait. Love to know where you went, where you ate, where you partied, what you thought was fun, etc.
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For a random little outdoor venue, check out 2 Kolegas.
And don't forget to get a slice of pizza and good beer at Crow's Nest (for some reason can't find the link) before the gov't shuts it down for the entire month of Aug.
Hmmmm - per sites, most people never visit the Lamma Temple, but it's fantastic.
Train's pretty nice as well, but take your own beer on, Heineken runs 35kuai a pop.