Ai in Beijing - Day 2

2nd day of Ai's visit to beijing.  we kicked it off with a trip to 798.

Pyo Gallery, a Korean gallery


restaurant at 798, across from the 798 art center.  this hong xiao rou was absolutely amazing and i can't stop thinking about it.  i need to learn how to make this.  looks like lots of soy sauce and even more sugar marinated fatty pork.



at the UCCA cullens center they had some cool stuff.  this was a video game inspired by Mao's Long March campaign and other commie era stuff like that.  You could actually play it, there was a wireless controller shuffling around from person to person.


in this huge airplane sized hanger room there were all these flag poles tricked out with blowers that were really loud but created this amazing installation art.  faces of children on all the flags blowing on both sides of the room. 



it says war on the back of his ski doo.




a room full of this.  i wonder what it all means.


dinner with my roomate and her bf.  lots of drinky.  including bai jiu, the horrid 50% alc content chinese drink of choice.


and lots of huang jiu (yellow liquor)


all that lead to dancing at MIX.


I like to think that my crotch is so important and magical that magical mojo bubbles flow out of it when im in a good mood.


and it worked!!!!!


this crazy night ended in Ai realizing that her wallet was stolen, me calling the club a few times, them actually finding it, us going there at 5am to get it, everything being in it except for the money, eating a jian bing and going to bed.  the next day Ai was stuck in bed for a long while, we missed the forbidden city cuz it closed an hour early, and didn't do much of anything because Ai wanted to die, so there are no pics really from day three.  The next day Ai discovered at the doctor she had a viral fever and couldn't get on a plane for a few days.  What a good trip to Beijing.  Don't worry lil' guy,  you'll have plenty of time to get your revenge on me in Tokyo.  See you next time Ai-chan!

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Qianmen Hutong Ride

part of gearing up to move to japan is consolidating my possesions.  this means finally combining all the mp3 cds i have into mp3 dvds, about 7 cds fits on 1 dvd so i save a lot of space.  this is a huge ongoing project because i have about 500 gb of music


the grass in beijing is beloved and protected.  there isn't really anywhere you can go to kick back and lay on the grass, which some people know i love to do.  look at this beaute, begging for someone to curl up next to her but nope, as usually treading on this grass is prohibited.


discovered this park north of my house last week.  look at all this stuff waiting to be ridden and pictures to be taken.  too bad this stuff is not fun when you are by yourself.



this tape doesn't make sense to me, also why its s strewn about is a mystery.  it says "caution" and then "safe"


guys flying kites.  one of them was so high that you couldn't even see it because it dissapeared behind the clouds.


whats going on here.  a girl was pacing back and forth saying some stuff from a clipboard


that child is sleeping on one sweet newspaper bed on the sidewalk in dusty, filthy beijing.  she is selling lotus flower pods i think and wearing those disgusting flesh colored calf socks.


water plants at houhai


me waiting for a long long time for my friends to come to qianmen to rent bikes to explore the hutongs south of Qianmen






a busy malatang place, and for good reason, it was sups good.


the dining/storage area, everything was super fresh cuz they didn't really have room to store anything for it to get un-fresh


if youtube wasn't blocked in china i would post the video of this guy slicing little noodles off into this soup.  its pretty cool.  this place was super good and later the owner lady showed us a book it is featured in.  we saw the writer of the book, a white guy leaving as we came to sit down.  also while we were eating we met this 79 year old woman whose feet were super small because of foot binding.  she said that she is 79 years old but her feet are still getting bigger every day.  she lived next door and her granddaughter is in school in london and her grandson in school in the US.  Beijing people are so friendly.  mostly.





random but cool, this lil' deer was on top of this big steamroller.

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Mid August

I guess most of the stuff in this post looks negative, so i just want to say don't get me wrong, i like beijing, there are just somethings, like everywhere in the world that don't turn my crank. 


the restaurant i eat at a lot is newly remodelled, doesn't look any different really but now they have this health inspection grade on the wall.  They got a solid C!  it only goes up to D, I feel a lot better about eating at this place now that i can rest assured that they are one grade away from being a sheit hole.  That gleaming red C on the wall is like a comforting candle in the window letting all know "we're almost dirty enough to be shut down, but but we squeaked by this time".


This is a new developemnt in china i think.  I have never seen chinese spam until this day at the convenient store.  it is double cool because it even says U.S. inspected and passed by dept of agriculture!  anyway this tastes like real spam




tried to go to the underground city below beijing.  it was on my list of things to do before i left beijing, only its closed to the public now! 




this is a "self-help providing machine of free condom"  i dont understand the imagery here, unless it is showing what is not supposed to happen if you use this machine.


Ritan park at the fishing pond.  this full grown man caught all these little goldfish, congrats guy, you defeated all the children around you and deprived them of their fish.



went out on the town with the brits.  stopped by maggies for a bit so we could all see what it was about.  Maggies is infamous for being a place where mongolian prostitutes hang out.  it had been closed down since before the olympics until recently.  I have to say it is a pretty amazing site inside.  The only girls inside are mongolian ladies of the night, and foriegn dudes.  so its basically a brothel.  amazing.


wat the heck are these graphs on the wall?



guys swimming in the filthy canal near my house and similtaneously adjusting their junk.  this water is disgusting.  there were even more guys swimming in it.


lake hou hai.  slightly less disgusting water.  this is where i kayaked and there were all the dead fish in the water.


everyone wears speedo like trunks and a lot of people wear caps.  that granny on the right is awesome.  anyway keep in mind that this lake is where people blow their nose, spit, hock loogies, clear their throat, squeeze the p!ss out of their babies, urinate when drunk, urinate when not drunk, throw garbage, throw chicken bones, deposit all of their aids, syphillis, ebola virus, etc... and there are probably a few dookies in there too.


guy on rooftop with his pigeons.  on another note i met the mom and the son of the pigeon family in my apartment complext while practicing kung fu one night.  you know the ones that have pigeon cages on their balcony.


on the left is an orange drink that i thought was going to qench my thirst after a run.  i started sucking it down only to find that orange jelly was filling my mouth, unexpected surprise!  and jelly is not a thirst quencher.  taht guy on there is ultra cool guy mega superstar Jay Chou, he is a singer and actor.  he was in curse of the golden flower and i just saw that he landed the role of Kato in that new Green Hornet movie.  Kato was played by bruce lee originally, so lets see wat this jay chou can do.  on the right is a cold noodle bowl from the store.  not very good.

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