Mike In China

On Thursday night I finished work and took a cab out to the Pudong airport, picked up Barone and we hopped on the train to Beijing. The train ride was interesting. I was only able to get us tickets in a "hard sleeper" and on the top bunk of three high bunk beds. Climbing up with our bags was a little difficult and once we got up there we couldn't sit up but it wasn't too bad. Because it was late (and Barone had been traveling for almost 24 hours) we just talked for awhile and slept the rest of the train ride. Barone and I arrived, took a taxi to Nathan's apartment and let ourselves in. We hunted down a spot for lunch while waiting for Nathan to get off of work. We stumbled upon a local "hot pot" restaurant. At a hot pot restuarant they give you a pot of boiling water with spices and herbs and then you order plates of uncooked meat and vegetables. It tastes really good and is also alot of fun. After lunch Nathan met up with us and we took Barone to her first Chinese market. She was a little overwhelmed at first but was able to pull herself together and purchase a scarf. For dinner we went to a restaurant and had some of the famous Peking Duck. It was really good. After dinner we stopped by a couple local bars for drinks before heading to Party World with a group of Nathan's friends. Party World is a giant KTV Bar (karaoke bare). We had a blast! Its crazy how seriously they take their kareoke bars here. The next morning we woke up and headed to the Arts District. Its an old warehouse/industrial area that has been converted into tons of different contemporary art galleries. It was a really cool area. Then we headed to Hohai which is an area surrounding a lake that is mostly a Hutong area (tradional style Chinese buildings). It was fun just walking around looking at the different shops. Out on the ice the people were flying kites and ice skating. It was funny though because they weren't all on skates but rather they mostly used little sleds that had to seats on long blades that they pushed themselves around with ski poles. They looked pretty fun. It was pretty cold so instead of walking around we decided to stop and get foot message at a local shop. It was ok but it tickled alot. After that we met up with some more of Nathan's friends and had dinner at an Indian restaurant. The food was really good. One of Nathan's friends was a Chinese woman who owned a bar nearby so we went there to hangout and have a few drinks for awhile. We had fun playing Jenga and the tradional Chinese drinking dice game. After that we headed to a club, MIX. We had fun dancing until about 2am but then headed out because Nathan had to run into work to finish a project in the morning. Today we woke up and went to the Lama Temple and saw the giant Budda. Then we got lunch at a local, hole in the wall restaurant for lunch and then got another massage. We got free dinner with the massages and then headed to the night market where Nathan and I ate scorpion on a stick. It wasn't too bad. Its time to head to bed because tomorrow we are going to go to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Don't worry I've already taken over 100 pictures and will post them when I get back to Shanghai.