I went to Bejing for 25 hours. Â I took an afternoon flight from Singapore and got there at 11:00 at night on Thursday. Â I flew out Friday at midnight, arriving at 7:00 AM in Singapore on two hours sleep, with the opportunity to spend the whole day trying to keep awake (took a three-hour nap, did a bunch of work, went swimming with Zen, watched some Space:1999 episodes – it was a full day). Got nine hours of uninterrupted sleep, so I can finally say that Sunday I’m quite back to normal (whatever normal is).
Beijing was not too bad – I did my work stuff in the morning and part of the afternoon, then from 5:30 onwards some colleagues and I set out for some food and drink.  First stop was near Sanlitun (三里屯), an entertainment district where locals hang out (compared to Houhai [後海], where the tourists hang out). The taxi ride there was excruciating – we were stuck in traffic for most of the 45 minutes, and on the radio the taxi driver had some freaky talk show guy who sounded like he was insane, shouting, barking, and making weird sounds.  I speak Chinese, but I had no idea what he was talking about. About 20 minutes into the ride he finished his freakout and we all breathed a sigh of relief. When we finally got there. We went to a german microbrewery for Drei Kronen 1308, where we had big mugs of beer and tons of sausages.  We left just as the Philippine musicians in the oompah band were setting up, I wonder how that would have been.  I saw a Chinese waiter there come out wearing full Bavarian regalia (Lederhosen, etc), and I said to him in my best Bayrisch “jo Franzl, wie geht es dia denn suou?” I think he was even more than my colleagues were.
Here are some pics of the pub:
Beijing beer
Beijing Wurstchen
After that we jumped in a cab and went to a place called Jianghu Bar (江湖酒å§) on one of the hutong alleys around the city. The place was an old Qing dynasty house that had been converted into a pub. Great stuff. Here are a few pictures of the evening:
Jianghu pub Bar - 江湖酒å§
Jianghu pub Bar - 江湖酒å§
Jianghu pub Bar - 江湖酒å§
Here is a bit of video that I took of the soundcheck. Too bad I had to leave just as the night was starting, but two of my friends stayed behind, I’ll have to ask them how it was. Click here for a sample of what a concert at Jianghu Jiuba is like.
On the flight I got a chance to see a bunch of movies. On the way over I watched “Inception” (why does Christopher Nolan need to re-make Memento?) and “Boy” (great coming-of-age flick from New Zealand. On the way back I watched The Simpsons, as well as three samples of TV shows I’d never seen before: “Glee” (the Madonna episode), “Entourage” (cameo by Nick Cassavetes) and “The Big Bang Theory”. Not impressed.
Here’s a pic from my arrival in Singapore:
Singapore sunrise