Monday, May 28, 2007
I'm a man!
The first thing we noticed about Beijing was that it is vastly cleaner than any other place we’d been to in China so far. The roads, the buildings and most importantly the air were all spotless. There is no doubt that this has everything to do with the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games next year but it nonetheless makes a pleasant change from the smoggy, dirty cities of Shanghai and Xi’an. As our overnight train from Xi’an arrived at 7.30am it was still only 9am by the time we had checked in and got settled in our hostel. We decided to make use of this full day in Beijing by renting bikes and going on a cycle through the hutongs (little alleyways) that are littered throughout the city. Since Tiananmen Square was on the way to the beginning of the bike trip (as detailed by lonely planet) we decided to visit that first. It’s the biggest public square in the world and its size is certainly the first thing you notice about it. The second thing you notice is that it’s a little bland. Save for the monument to the people in the middle it’s practically bare. But the whole point of it is its historic significance and Mao’s Mausoleum is on one of the edges. Unfortunately the Mausoleum is closed for restoration for 6 months, probably again due to the Olympics coming soon. The square also gives you the classic view of the ‘Gate of Heavenly Peace’ entrance to the Forbidden City with Mao’s portrait hanging above.
After sufficiently taking in the square scenes including loads of people flying kites, we embarked on our bike trip. It was a little daunting at first as the roads are crazy and our bikes were of the one gear variety. However it soon turned out to be grand as there are wide bike lanes all through the city and traffic police at every corner that help you make those otherwise impossible left turns. Also, and perhaps most importantly, the city is completely flat meaning you can cycle for hours without getting knackered. It was a beautiful day and the trip was really excellent. We cycled through the quaint hutongs stopping off at various places including Jingshan Park and Beihai Park. Thanks to the excellent weather these parks provided very pleasant walks. The whole day out took a respectable 6 hours and so we spent the evening getting a bit of R&R at our small yet cozy hostel. The following morning we had big plans to go visit the Forbidden City. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans. Well to be truthful it was more of a joint collaboration between Mother Nature and cheap Chinese beer. The night before we had been unexpectedly dragged to a bar by a Norwegian guy and a Taiwanese girl. While it was quite an entertaining night including a couple practically making babies in the middle of the beer garden and a Chinese guy smashing a bottle at an American girl because she disrespected his mother, it did mean we were up later than intended. In addition to this it was raining and we decided to wait around a bit for it to clear up. No point in going to the Forbidden City if it’s lashing rain. It did clear up however not until 2.30. We decided to give the city and overall miss at that stage as even if we had gone we would have had just over an hour there, not long according to Lonely Planet who recommend a whole day to see it.
It was probably just as well that we spent that day hanging about the hostel and resting our weary traveled bodies as we were up at 6.30am the following morning for our excursion to the Great Wall. There are various places at which to see the wall however it is essential to choose carefully which one you want to go to. To go to somewhere close by would be disastrous as it would be full of irritating American tourists. On the other hand it’s a pain in the ass and expensive to travel for miles to a more remote spot. We settled on a tour offered by our hostel which was excellent value for what it involved. The bus picked us up at 7.15am and drove us for 4 hours to an area of the wall called Jinshanling. This is a less visited area and is a 10km hike along the wall to Simatai, a more popular area. By hiking this 10km we were able to see various different areas of the wall as well as spectacular views in both directions. The fact that the day was a scorcher weather wise really helped matters. The Great Wall is certainly that – Great! I mean it. There has been several times throughout the trip where we’ve visited a famous place only to be disappointed either from the build up or the many tourists or whatever. The Great Wall was definitely all that and takes its place up there with the Inca Trail and diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Definitely worth a visit.
The major downside, though, is the scores of local farmers that walk along the wall with you harassing you to buy books, ice-cold water and beer. Two women in particular took a shine to us and started walking with us. They didn’t try to sell anything at first but instead offered us facts and information about the wall. At first I tried to ignore them but it’s very difficult. After a while I engaged them a little but eventually we were having full blown discussions. I knew that by talking to them I was signing myself up to buy something from them. Fi and I had a private discussion and agreed at the end we would buy something small between us. As we approached Simatai, the women informed us they would not be going any further and looked at us expectedly. We asked what they had to sell and it turned out we had 2 options – a book for Y118 or a t-shirt for Y100. Not wishing to spend that much on anything we decided to give them all that we had (Y45) for free. Well actually we had more money but it was in our bags and we certainly weren’t going to concede that fact. The women had been so nice and friendly to this point but now they turned on us. We insisted that Y45 was all we had and tried to explain that we were offering them the money for free and as such they should be grateful. They were having none of it and getting quite stroppy about it too. We very soon got sick of it and so offered them an ultimatum. Either they take the Y45 or not but either way we were leaving. They laughed at us and complained more so we walked off. Just then they grabbed the Y45 and without a thank you just walked off in the opposite direction. Ungrateful sods! It’s a very unfortunate aspect of Chinese culture that you can’t trust many of the people when they are being nice to you. People say that China is the country of the 21st century. While their economy may be growing and the government may be ploughing money into cleaning and modernizing the cities, the general attitude will have to change for them to be taken seriously as a dominant country.
The 10km hike took us the guts of 4 hours and at the end we were glad for the meal included in the price of the tour. The hike had been tough enough with some parts requiring you to clamber up at a 70 degree angle. We felt good at the end though and according to a Chinese saying “you aren’t a man until you’ve seen the Great Wall of China”. I was pretty happy to finally be a man although I don’t think Fi was as excited about her newfound sexuality. That evening we were knackered but still managed to drag ourselves around the block to a night food market that Fi had spotted a few days earlier. As ever with Chinese food, it was fried and greasy and pumped full of MSG. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t tasty! We enjoyed lamb, beef and chicken skewers as well as beef pancakes, garlic oysters and crab kebabs. Unfortunately the deep fried ice cream for dessert turned out to just be a big ball of batter – Rog would have loved it! Some of the things we didn’t try were skewered grasshoppers, rats and various other insects. Unfortunately the gruff street seller wouldn’t allow us to take a photo of them unless we bought one. Spoilsport.
We woke up the next morning to the sounds of heavy rainfall. Oh dear! It was only our 5th day of rain since we left Ireland but we were so used to dryness we couldn’t believe that Mother Nature had the audacity to throw some rain our way. This was the day we had pegged for seeing the Forbidden City and since it’s all outdoors, that plan was thrown out the window. So were most of the other things we could have done – Summer Palace, Lama Temple, Gate of Heavenly Peace etc... Looking through Lonely Planet we found only one indoor thing that we actually wanted to do which was the Pearl Market. We rocked along and spent about an hour perusing the different sizes, shapes and colours of pearls. Apart from a quick stop off at the international bookstore on the way home, that was our entire activity for the day. Thankfully the rain had cleared by the next day. It meant we could go visit the Forbidden City except although dry, the weather still wasn’t bright or sunny. That didn’t really matter though as most of the major buildings in the Forbidden City were surrounded by scaffolding and were closed to the public. This was due to restoration works for the 2008 Olympics next year which in one way is fair enough but it’s still a bit cheeky to charge a full price entrance when all the main stuff is closed. We decided to hit the Lama temple in the afternoon and although one part of this was closed for restoration too, most of it was viewable. The Lama Temple is the only Tibetan Temple in Beijing that is still in use and it included a massive Buddha at the back of it. This alone was worth seeing. It was also interesting watching the shaven headed monks strolling around doing their Buddhist thing.
For our final day we trekked out to the Summer Palace right on the outskirts of Beijing. It involved 3 trains and a taxi however it was pretty nice and the weather had improved somewhat. The Summer Palace was the playground of the emperors and empresses, where they went in the summer to escape the heat of the Forbidden City. It consisted 70% of a lake and we had fun walking around, taking a boat across the lake, watching people practice Tai Chi and climbing the ten million stairs to the top of some temple. When we arrived back to the hostel, we killed the next few hours eating and playing cards until our night train to Shenyang – Dan’s city!
We arrived in Shenyang early on a Friday morning. Dan and his girlfriend Helena were there to meet us. Unfortunately Dan had to run off to an interview shortly after meeting us however Helena was there to sort us out. She didn't speak any English but having spent 6 years in Munich she practically fluent in German. No problem for the likes of me and Fi. After sorting us out with tickets out of Shenyang for Sunday she brought us back to Dan's apartment. Now I don't know why but I didn't expect his place to be the most amazing in the world. It turned out to be a lovely spacious apartment with cool lighting and comfy couches. Not to mention the tv and sound system. We chilled out for a bit watching tv while Helena whipped us up some nice pork dumplings that Dan had bought in advance for us. How did he know I loved dumplings so much? Possibly because I spent every minute that he was in Ireland begging him to bring me to Moore St for Chinese dumplings. Dan wasn't long and when he arrived home from his interview we spent a few hours catching up and reminiscing about times in Ireland. The Chinese eat pretty early and so we headed for dinner in the early evening. Dan had the whole weekend planned culinary-wise and so we placed our stomachs in his hands for 48 hours - for better or worse.
Friday night's cuisine was Korean. It was basically a BBQ but indoors. Each table has 2 little pits in it containing charcoal and a grill. The restaurant cooks your food for you (although according to Dan you can cook it yourself if you want but it's a pain in the ass) and you keep it hot on your little mini BBQ. So the dinner consisted of an array of skewers. The lamb and beef ones were nice for sure. The rest were questionable! The chicken one looked tasty until I put it in my mouth and realised there was no meat on it. When I told Dan this he said that's because it was chicken bones. So I asked were you supposed to suck on it to get the flavour and he replied that you just chew it. As he said this he put one in his mouth and crunched away at it. It was actually chicken cartilage, not chicken bone. I tried to give it a try because when in Rome yadda yadda yadda. But unfortunately I just couldn't bring myself to eat bightsize chunks of chicken cartilage. The other skewers contained squid (ok but a bit tasteless), silkworms (like a REALLY strong piece of liver), and kidney (not too bad actually). Dan, Helena and Emily (one of Dan's friends who had joined us at this stage) tucked into everything while we politely confined ourselves to beef and lamb. After dinner we went to an authentic Chinese Karaoke bar. This place was the bees knees and they actually had some western classics as well as some Chinese ahem "classics". Dan and his mates treated us to an array of Chinese pop songs and we returned the favour with some George Michael, a bit of Britney and even some Westlife. Because Dan had a second interview in the morning and because we had started the night so early we were actually home by about 12.30. After one more beer at Dan's we headed for bed.
After Dan's interview on Saturday morning, Me, Fi, Dan, Helena and Emily travelled a bit outside Shenyang to see the botanical gardens. It was a lovely warm day with a slight breeze that gave it the perfect temperature. The gardens were actually done up really well and had lots of fun little nooks and crannies to explore. It also had adult size playground swings that provided us with great entertainment. Back at Dan's we took a necessary 2 hour rest time before heading to dinner with Dan's mother and her boyfriend. Tonight it was duck. Dan told me he was taking us to a duck restaurant which I was pleased about however it soon became apparent that duck means duck and all parts of the duck! When the food came out there was the usual meat and pancakes etc... But included in the order were duck's tongues, duck's feet and pumpkin deepfried in duck's eggs. They even brought out the bones that had been stripped of all meat for us to suck on. China is such a waste not want not culture. I mean, you don't HAVE to eat every single part of the animal! So anyway I tried a bit of everything again but mainly dwelled on the duck in pancakes. The duck's feet in particular were the worst. They had been drowned in wasabi sauce - presumeably to disguise the ducky footy taste - and Fi and I had nightmares about them for days afterwards. The great thing about the meal though was getting to meet Dan's mother. We had a great auld chat via Dan and I enjoyed embarrassing him by making him tell his mother he was a lovely boy.
After dinner, Dan used his contacts to get us into a cool club. Clubs in China are completely different to those in Ireland.
1) Everything starts a lot earlier and we arrived there around 8.45.
2) Most clubs have a band who play for half the night. The band at our club were really really good. They had these great Asian hairstyles, the sound was excellent and although normally I'm not a fan of Asian pop, the players were actually really good and it's always good to see a bit of live music. They even played some western favourites like YMCA and I Will Survive which got us all up dancing.
3) You have to buy beers in bulk. When we got there we ordered 18 beers between us. This is because it's rude to order only one because it means that the table servers are running around all night getting one beer at a time.
4) Everyone sits. Well not everyone but the vast majority. If you turn up to a club in China and there are no seats left, you go somewhere else. Even when the groovy DJ from Hong Kong came on later in the night, still everyone sat! Totally bizarre but there you go.
5) Despite everything starting so early, clubs will remain open until the last person leaves. We left our club around 1am but it's good to know we could have stayed until 7 if we wanted!
After the club we went to a restaurant where some other of Dan's friends were. The restaurant had stopped serving food but for some reason it was happy to stay open and let us drink for a few more hours. It was a great part of the night sitting around this table and chatting to Dan and his mates, most of which had English and some of who had lived in Toronto.
On the Sunday morning we woke up fairly late as you can imagine and had only a minimal time before our bus back to Beijing. Even still, we managed to spend that time wisely and we got to do one thing that I hadn't yet done in China - Chinese pancakes! These were another thing that I used to beg Dan for when he was in Ireland. He always told me that the ones in China were much better than those on Moore St and he was right. What a hangover food! Shortly after we bid farewell to Dan and Helena and boarded our 8 hour bus back to Beijing. It was great to have seen Dan in his city and it's amazing how 2.5 years after seeing someone you can just slip right back into it. It also means that 2.5 years is a very short time and if that's the next time I see Dan then I'm sure it'll come around before I know it. Peace out brothers.
Me and Fi at the Great Wall of China
At a club in Shenyang with (from left to right) Helena, Dan, Emily, me, Fi
Having dinner at the duck restaurant in Shenyang. Clockwise from left to right: Dan's mother's boyfriend, me, Fi, Dan, Emily, Helena, Dan's mother
Er... Dan. Looking a bit like a Bond villain.
Me and Fi with some Terracota warriors at the Botanical Gardens of Shenyang
Me and Dan at the Botanical Gardens in Shenyang
Me and Fi at authentic Chinese Karaoke in Shenyang
Dinner at the Korean restaurant in Shenyang. On the left Fi and me. On the right Emily, Helena and Dan.
The first thing we noticed about Beijing was that it is vastly cleaner than any other place we’d been to in China so far. The roads, the buildings and most importantly the air were all spotless. There is no doubt that this has everything to do with the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games next year but it nonetheless makes a pleasant change from the smoggy, dirty cities of Shanghai and Xi’an. As our overnight train from Xi’an arrived at 7.30am it was still only 9am by the time we had checked in and got settled in our hostel. We decided to make use of this full day in Beijing by renting bikes and going on a cycle through the hutongs (little alleyways) that are littered throughout the city. Since Tiananmen Square was on the way to the beginning of the bike trip (as detailed by lonely planet) we decided to visit that first. It’s the biggest public square in the world and its size is certainly the first thing you notice about it. The second thing you notice is that it’s a little bland. Save for the monument to the people in the middle it’s practically bare. But the whole point of it is its historic significance and Mao’s Mausoleum is on one of the edges. Unfortunately the Mausoleum is closed for restoration for 6 months, probably again due to the Olympics coming soon. The square also gives you the classic view of the ‘Gate of Heavenly Peace’ entrance to the Forbidden City with Mao’s portrait hanging above.
After sufficiently taking in the square scenes including loads of people flying kites, we embarked on our bike trip. It was a little daunting at first as the roads are crazy and our bikes were of the one gear variety. However it soon turned out to be grand as there are wide bike lanes all through the city and traffic police at every corner that help you make those otherwise impossible left turns. Also, and perhaps most importantly, the city is completely flat meaning you can cycle for hours without getting knackered. It was a beautiful day and the trip was really excellent. We cycled through the quaint hutongs stopping off at various places including Jingshan Park and Beihai Park. Thanks to the excellent weather these parks provided very pleasant walks. The whole day out took a respectable 6 hours and so we spent the evening getting a bit of R&R at our small yet cozy hostel. The following morning we had big plans to go visit the Forbidden City. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans. Well to be truthful it was more of a joint collaboration between Mother Nature and cheap Chinese beer. The night before we had been unexpectedly dragged to a bar by a Norwegian guy and a Taiwanese girl. While it was quite an entertaining night including a couple practically making babies in the middle of the beer garden and a Chinese guy smashing a bottle at an American girl because she disrespected his mother, it did mean we were up later than intended. In addition to this it was raining and we decided to wait around a bit for it to clear up. No point in going to the Forbidden City if it’s lashing rain. It did clear up however not until 2.30. We decided to give the city and overall miss at that stage as even if we had gone we would have had just over an hour there, not long according to Lonely Planet who recommend a whole day to see it.
It was probably just as well that we spent that day hanging about the hostel and resting our weary traveled bodies as we were up at 6.30am the following morning for our excursion to the Great Wall. There are various places at which to see the wall however it is essential to choose carefully which one you want to go to. To go to somewhere close by would be disastrous as it would be full of irritating American tourists. On the other hand it’s a pain in the ass and expensive to travel for miles to a more remote spot. We settled on a tour offered by our hostel which was excellent value for what it involved. The bus picked us up at 7.15am and drove us for 4 hours to an area of the wall called Jinshanling. This is a less visited area and is a 10km hike along the wall to Simatai, a more popular area. By hiking this 10km we were able to see various different areas of the wall as well as spectacular views in both directions. The fact that the day was a scorcher weather wise really helped matters. The Great Wall is certainly that – Great! I mean it. There has been several times throughout the trip where we’ve visited a famous place only to be disappointed either from the build up or the many tourists or whatever. The Great Wall was definitely all that and takes its place up there with the Inca Trail and diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Definitely worth a visit.
The major downside, though, is the scores of local farmers that walk along the wall with you harassing you to buy books, ice-cold water and beer. Two women in particular took a shine to us and started walking with us. They didn’t try to sell anything at first but instead offered us facts and information about the wall. At first I tried to ignore them but it’s very difficult. After a while I engaged them a little but eventually we were having full blown discussions. I knew that by talking to them I was signing myself up to buy something from them. Fi and I had a private discussion and agreed at the end we would buy something small between us. As we approached Simatai, the women informed us they would not be going any further and looked at us expectedly. We asked what they had to sell and it turned out we had 2 options – a book for Y118 or a t-shirt for Y100. Not wishing to spend that much on anything we decided to give them all that we had (Y45) for free. Well actually we had more money but it was in our bags and we certainly weren’t going to concede that fact. The women had been so nice and friendly to this point but now they turned on us. We insisted that Y45 was all we had and tried to explain that we were offering them the money for free and as such they should be grateful. They were having none of it and getting quite stroppy about it too. We very soon got sick of it and so offered them an ultimatum. Either they take the Y45 or not but either way we were leaving. They laughed at us and complained more so we walked off. Just then they grabbed the Y45 and without a thank you just walked off in the opposite direction. Ungrateful sods! It’s a very unfortunate aspect of Chinese culture that you can’t trust many of the people when they are being nice to you. People say that China is the country of the 21st century. While their economy may be growing and the government may be ploughing money into cleaning and modernizing the cities, the general attitude will have to change for them to be taken seriously as a dominant country.
The 10km hike took us the guts of 4 hours and at the end we were glad for the meal included in the price of the tour. The hike had been tough enough with some parts requiring you to clamber up at a 70 degree angle. We felt good at the end though and according to a Chinese saying “you aren’t a man until you’ve seen the Great Wall of China”. I was pretty happy to finally be a man although I don’t think Fi was as excited about her newfound sexuality. That evening we were knackered but still managed to drag ourselves around the block to a night food market that Fi had spotted a few days earlier. As ever with Chinese food, it was fried and greasy and pumped full of MSG. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t tasty! We enjoyed lamb, beef and chicken skewers as well as beef pancakes, garlic oysters and crab kebabs. Unfortunately the deep fried ice cream for dessert turned out to just be a big ball of batter – Rog would have loved it! Some of the things we didn’t try were skewered grasshoppers, rats and various other insects. Unfortunately the gruff street seller wouldn’t allow us to take a photo of them unless we bought one. Spoilsport.
We woke up the next morning to the sounds of heavy rainfall. Oh dear! It was only our 5th day of rain since we left Ireland but we were so used to dryness we couldn’t believe that Mother Nature had the audacity to throw some rain our way. This was the day we had pegged for seeing the Forbidden City and since it’s all outdoors, that plan was thrown out the window. So were most of the other things we could have done – Summer Palace, Lama Temple, Gate of Heavenly Peace etc... Looking through Lonely Planet we found only one indoor thing that we actually wanted to do which was the Pearl Market. We rocked along and spent about an hour perusing the different sizes, shapes and colours of pearls. Apart from a quick stop off at the international bookstore on the way home, that was our entire activity for the day. Thankfully the rain had cleared by the next day. It meant we could go visit the Forbidden City except although dry, the weather still wasn’t bright or sunny. That didn’t really matter though as most of the major buildings in the Forbidden City were surrounded by scaffolding and were closed to the public. This was due to restoration works for the 2008 Olympics next year which in one way is fair enough but it’s still a bit cheeky to charge a full price entrance when all the main stuff is closed. We decided to hit the Lama temple in the afternoon and although one part of this was closed for restoration too, most of it was viewable. The Lama Temple is the only Tibetan Temple in Beijing that is still in use and it included a massive Buddha at the back of it. This alone was worth seeing. It was also interesting watching the shaven headed monks strolling around doing their Buddhist thing.
For our final day we trekked out to the Summer Palace right on the outskirts of Beijing. It involved 3 trains and a taxi however it was pretty nice and the weather had improved somewhat. The Summer Palace was the playground of the emperors and empresses, where they went in the summer to escape the heat of the Forbidden City. It consisted 70% of a lake and we had fun walking around, taking a boat across the lake, watching people practice Tai Chi and climbing the ten million stairs to the top of some temple. When we arrived back to the hostel, we killed the next few hours eating and playing cards until our night train to Shenyang – Dan’s city!
We arrived in Shenyang early on a Friday morning. Dan and his girlfriend Helena were there to meet us. Unfortunately Dan had to run off to an interview shortly after meeting us however Helena was there to sort us out. She didn't speak any English but having spent 6 years in Munich she practically fluent in German. No problem for the likes of me and Fi. After sorting us out with tickets out of Shenyang for Sunday she brought us back to Dan's apartment. Now I don't know why but I didn't expect his place to be the most amazing in the world. It turned out to be a lovely spacious apartment with cool lighting and comfy couches. Not to mention the tv and sound system. We chilled out for a bit watching tv while Helena whipped us up some nice pork dumplings that Dan had bought in advance for us. How did he know I loved dumplings so much? Possibly because I spent every minute that he was in Ireland begging him to bring me to Moore St for Chinese dumplings. Dan wasn't long and when he arrived home from his interview we spent a few hours catching up and reminiscing about times in Ireland. The Chinese eat pretty early and so we headed for dinner in the early evening. Dan had the whole weekend planned culinary-wise and so we placed our stomachs in his hands for 48 hours - for better or worse.
Friday night's cuisine was Korean. It was basically a BBQ but indoors. Each table has 2 little pits in it containing charcoal and a grill. The restaurant cooks your food for you (although according to Dan you can cook it yourself if you want but it's a pain in the ass) and you keep it hot on your little mini BBQ. So the dinner consisted of an array of skewers. The lamb and beef ones were nice for sure. The rest were questionable! The chicken one looked tasty until I put it in my mouth and realised there was no meat on it. When I told Dan this he said that's because it was chicken bones. So I asked were you supposed to suck on it to get the flavour and he replied that you just chew it. As he said this he put one in his mouth and crunched away at it. It was actually chicken cartilage, not chicken bone. I tried to give it a try because when in Rome yadda yadda yadda. But unfortunately I just couldn't bring myself to eat bightsize chunks of chicken cartilage. The other skewers contained squid (ok but a bit tasteless), silkworms (like a REALLY strong piece of liver), and kidney (not too bad actually). Dan, Helena and Emily (one of Dan's friends who had joined us at this stage) tucked into everything while we politely confined ourselves to beef and lamb. After dinner we went to an authentic Chinese Karaoke bar. This place was the bees knees and they actually had some western classics as well as some Chinese ahem "classics". Dan and his mates treated us to an array of Chinese pop songs and we returned the favour with some George Michael, a bit of Britney and even some Westlife. Because Dan had a second interview in the morning and because we had started the night so early we were actually home by about 12.30. After one more beer at Dan's we headed for bed.
After Dan's interview on Saturday morning, Me, Fi, Dan, Helena and Emily travelled a bit outside Shenyang to see the botanical gardens. It was a lovely warm day with a slight breeze that gave it the perfect temperature. The gardens were actually done up really well and had lots of fun little nooks and crannies to explore. It also had adult size playground swings that provided us with great entertainment. Back at Dan's we took a necessary 2 hour rest time before heading to dinner with Dan's mother and her boyfriend. Tonight it was duck. Dan told me he was taking us to a duck restaurant which I was pleased about however it soon became apparent that duck means duck and all parts of the duck! When the food came out there was the usual meat and pancakes etc... But included in the order were duck's tongues, duck's feet and pumpkin deepfried in duck's eggs. They even brought out the bones that had been stripped of all meat for us to suck on. China is such a waste not want not culture. I mean, you don't HAVE to eat every single part of the animal! So anyway I tried a bit of everything again but mainly dwelled on the duck in pancakes. The duck's feet in particular were the worst. They had been drowned in wasabi sauce - presumeably to disguise the ducky footy taste - and Fi and I had nightmares about them for days afterwards. The great thing about the meal though was getting to meet Dan's mother. We had a great auld chat via Dan and I enjoyed embarrassing him by making him tell his mother he was a lovely boy.
After dinner, Dan used his contacts to get us into a cool club. Clubs in China are completely different to those in Ireland.
1) Everything starts a lot earlier and we arrived there around 8.45.
2) Most clubs have a band who play for half the night. The band at our club were really really good. They had these great Asian hairstyles, the sound was excellent and although normally I'm not a fan of Asian pop, the players were actually really good and it's always good to see a bit of live music. They even played some western favourites like YMCA and I Will Survive which got us all up dancing.
3) You have to buy beers in bulk. When we got there we ordered 18 beers between us. This is because it's rude to order only one because it means that the table servers are running around all night getting one beer at a time.
4) Everyone sits. Well not everyone but the vast majority. If you turn up to a club in China and there are no seats left, you go somewhere else. Even when the groovy DJ from Hong Kong came on later in the night, still everyone sat! Totally bizarre but there you go.
5) Despite everything starting so early, clubs will remain open until the last person leaves. We left our club around 1am but it's good to know we could have stayed until 7 if we wanted!
After the club we went to a restaurant where some other of Dan's friends were. The restaurant had stopped serving food but for some reason it was happy to stay open and let us drink for a few more hours. It was a great part of the night sitting around this table and chatting to Dan and his mates, most of which had English and some of who had lived in Toronto.
On the Sunday morning we woke up fairly late as you can imagine and had only a minimal time before our bus back to Beijing. Even still, we managed to spend that time wisely and we got to do one thing that I hadn't yet done in China - Chinese pancakes! These were another thing that I used to beg Dan for when he was in Ireland. He always told me that the ones in China were much better than those on Moore St and he was right. What a hangover food! Shortly after we bid farewell to Dan and Helena and boarded our 8 hour bus back to Beijing. It was great to have seen Dan in his city and it's amazing how 2.5 years after seeing someone you can just slip right back into it. It also means that 2.5 years is a very short time and if that's the next time I see Dan then I'm sure it'll come around before I know it. Peace out brothers.
Me and Fi at the Great Wall of China
Me at the Great Wall again
At a club in Shenyang with (from left to right) Helena, Dan, Emily, me, Fi
Having dinner at the duck restaurant in Shenyang. Clockwise from left to right: Dan's mother's boyfriend, me, Fi, Dan, Emily, Helena, Dan's mother
Er... Dan. Looking a bit like a Bond villain.
Me and Fi with some Terracota warriors at the Botanical Gardens of Shenyang
Me and Dan at the Botanical Gardens in Shenyang 
Me and Fi at authentic Chinese Karaoke in Shenyang
Dinner at the Korean restaurant in Shenyang. On the left Fi and me. On the right Emily, Helena and Dan.
Me at the forbidden city in Beijing. The only good part that wasn't covered in scaffolding
# posted by Grum @ 10:40 PM 
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