Sunday 20 May 2012

China - Beijing 798 Art District


One of the coolest places to go in Beijing is the ever-expanding art district.  It's a huge complex of art galleries in deco buildings, with a healthy splattering of sculptures in every nook and cranny.  If you're into that sort of thing you can easily spend a whole day wandering around admiring the buildings, sculptures and galleries.  I think the only thing missing is that it needs to be a bit "grittier" for an art district.  It's a little sterile and clean at the moment - perhaps that's a little representative of the contemporary art scene here?




















China: The Great Wall


In a typical effort to avoid tour groups and tour buses I decide to catch the train to the Great Wall of China.

The Great Train Station of China

The train leaves from Beijing North station and eventually arrives at Badaling which is the most famous touristey bit of the wall (though from what I am told from others who have visited the other sections - they are also just as touristic).  At the time of travelling it was only 6Yuan (US 95c - bargain!) each way and it's a comfortable train ride followed by a 200m walk to the great wall.
Somewhere along the line someone in the council planning forgot to put in a footpath from the train station to the great wall tourist attraction so much of the walk is spent walking along the side of a highway.  This is China.

The first thing I notice about the wall is that it's really lacking the younger tourists and backpacker types that you see elsewhere in asia.  The great wall is bustling with old grey folk who obviously have the GWOC on their bucket list - and they're about to kick said bucket.  I actually thought one old chap was having a heart attack halfway up one of the steep bits.  He actually wasn't sadly so I didn't have a chance to steal his wallet.


ProTip:  Walk in the opposite direction to the really high bit of the wall and if you're lucky like me you'll get an entire kilometer or so of wall all to yourself.

Well..  me and my B-boy and B-girl


After being there - I agree with the oldies - it should be on your bucket list.  In my opinion it's probably the coolest thing to see in China.  Hell it's got to be one of the best things to see in All Of Asia.

Do it. 






Tuesday 1 May 2012

China: Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square


It's big.

...but could do with a bit more variety in it's architecture.  (Yeah - I'm a dick.)

Notably this is the first time in a big city in China where I have been a novelty as a whitey - it's a common occurrence for "out-of-towners" to ask for a photograph of me.  It must be because I look like Brad Pitt...

I don't have a whole lot to say about Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square so I'll show you a few random photographs that I took instead:














China: Shai Zi - A Drinking Game

The most fun I've had in a pub in a long time is a chinese drinking game called Shai Zi.  Think of it as a simple version of poker designed to get you drunk as fast as possible, while being easy enough to play drunk.

Well, everything is easy when you're drunk.  I'm typing tghsi right now and I'm  drunk.  LIke to see you do that sober.  Whachoo lookin at??
Here's the rules as I know them if anybody is interested:

Everybody gets a cup and five dice each.  You shuffle your dice, then look at what you have without letting anybody else know what you have.  Loser starts first by betting how many of a particular number are on the table (including everybody's cups).  For example:  "Four Threes".
Then you go round the table in a clockwise, and each person has to either raise the bet, or call the player's bluff.  Raising the bet means that one of the numbers that you say has to increase.  If the previous person said "four threes", then the next person can say "four sixes", or "five twos" but can't say "four twos".
Once somebody has been called, everybody raises their cups and the dice are counted.  If you lied and are called, you drink.  If you call someone and they haven't lied, you drink.  Easy.


Oh, and ones are wildcards, but if somebody bets on ones then it is no longer a wildcard.

We also added the rule of thumbmaster which accelerated the proceedings...