a consumption addicted blogger.

A consumption addicted blogger… that’s me. But I learned what to consume and not to consume in Beijing over the past year. For example, do NOT consume cheap sushi from 7-eleven. Expired fish will make you grossly sick to the stomach and ruin a few good days of your journey.

However, DO consume the great food, that’s offered everywhere here. Either big restaurants or small restaurants. No need to speak chinese, hands & feet (and pictures in the menus) will help getting the exact food you like. And you won’t regret it, after looking at the bill. Alone, somewhere at 3-5€ or a complete meal for four people… 10-12€.

Do NOT buy electronic goods like LCD Monitors/TVs or computers. They are cheaper where you come from. At least in Germany. Way cheaper. However DO consider “Photographic City”, located in West-Beijing at the forth ring. It’s little shops gathered in a big building, where you can go from store to store, only communicating with model numbers and prices. Write the price they offer you down and go to next shop to compare. They’ll see that and then happens what happened to me: alone from competition between shops, I managed to lower the price of a Canon brand product (nothing small) to 2/3 of the price.

And i bought my iPhone 3G with receipt, warranty and everything in Beijing (Bai Nao Hui – as in “buy now here”), for about 500€, which is a bargain for Germans. Do NOT buy cheap watches, Montblanc rip-offs or anything of the sort. They’re crappy and some of you might get in trouble when returning with counterfeit stuff (think about customs).

And now, when I literally walked into a dodgy tourist Area, I got offered drugs, which totally surprised me and just declined “No, thank you.” And speaking of DON’Ts… They’ll offer you massages as well… and some other services might be included… But to be on the safe side, DON’T.

If you want to take home art or souvenirs, by all means, DO, but DON’T let yourselves be fooled by “art students”, inviting you to see their art gallery and pressure you into buying some art, you really don’t want to buy. These people will wait for you at major tourist spots, like the forbidden city. DO try the sweet potatoes, especially great in winter, as they keep you warm. … and i’m getting the need for some great coffee… and why not for example the Chinese answer to Starbuck’s: SPR Coffee. #coffee… #enjoy.

reporting in from beijing…

arrived the day before yesterday in beijing… it kinda feels familiar now. very familiar. i’ve been passing through this city to visit north korea. i spent two years of my life living here… when i was very small :) and in some weird way it feels like home. however, each visit, i’m discovering new stuff. don’t expect too many directions for great places around beijing. it’s either because i don’t know the names, the adresses or anything else. just into the blue. something always works out, if you’re able to find back to the hotel.

Don’t ask me, where I took this picture: Beijing’s smallest bar. I only know, it was somewhere northwest of the forbidden city. Curiously enough, there is a sign outside asking ppl not to take pictures of it. I took one anyway, as you can see. The whole neighborhood was full of small cozy and friendly bars, not for screaming nightlife, but rather for people, who like to chill and have a nice time to talk to each other…

In greyscale it still looks awesome and somehow tibetan, but you can find these structures near the east entrance of the summer palace. I’ll be posting more photos of that site, but this will have to suffice as preview for now.

Another awesome thing about China is the cheapness of the toys. And they work awesomely great: Like this small helicopter, which runs on an Lithium Polymer battery and is no bigger than the palm of your hand. It flies for about 8-10 minutes by wireless remote, then it recharges for the same time and is ready to fly again. And it’s pretty easy to fly them and great fun. This was the first thing I bought… aside from the #coffee i got at Starbuck’s at the airport.

Well, this was a first glance at what is to come from Beijing… I’ll be keeping you posted… Time to head home to the hotel, right outside of Dongzhimen Station. By the way, a single journey fare costs 2 RMB, for as far as you want to go.

oh and yeah… my thesis is back on GO… Tennessee, here I come. Grateful… and I can’t wait :)

beijing early 2009 and late 2009

as long as i’m waiting for my laundry is in the dryer, i might as well post this post ;) … here we go:

As I had to leave North Korea prematurely a year ago, i had some time to enjoy awesome Beijing, in deep dry Mongolian winter. Sandy and smoggy dry cold air, blown in from the north and biting -20°C (-4°F), but it was all worth it. Go early enough and every main site is swept clear and you can really take great photos, as if you’ve catapulted back 20 years, where not that many cared or rather were let to the site I would be visiting know. Let’s take the Forbidden City for example. Today, it’s crowded with tourists. Back then, I played as a two year old on vast deserted grounds in the Forbidden City. Today, you get that in winter and only, if you come early and shoot photos from just the right angles…

Well actually this picture was taken in summer, as you can see. I couldn’t find the folder with the pictures. It’s burried somewhere in the NK pictures. But here are some more pictures i found worth taking… for example of people taking pictures of each other in front of monuments… It was much more interesting and uplifting than any monument. It was just funny to watch :)

…more to come. directly from Beijing… i’ll be posting into the dark, so bear with me, if I don’t approve comments right away.

the spirit of hong kong – part three

this is where i lived, in the midlevels, with my room facing the peak. on the other side of the apartment, i had a big window front towards the harbour and watched all those planes (mostly 747-400s) land at Kai Tak and make that checkerboard approach. awesome. to bad they closed it. since then, hong kong was able to grow further into the sky and change its skyline completely.

 

i took the tram from North Point to Central in order to catch the next Star Ferry to Kowloon. I wanted to go through Queensplace, the Hutchinson House to the Central Pier. I was aware, that they built a new Central Pier, but i didn’t it would be that far off… “No, you have to get off in Central, near the Government House, to be closest to the pier…”, somebody told me. I told him, that i lived here 15 years ago and so much the city’s appearance had changed. A brit ex-pat listened and replied, that really a lot had changed since the hand-over since 1997, when China reclaimed Hong Kong to be the SAR. We all wondered, how Hong Kong would change in the next 15 years. Maybe the harbour would be completely gone by claimed land, to build more skyscrapers. But the people haven’t changed, the life hasn’t changed, the sights, sounds and smells are the same: the spirit of hong kong.

hk99

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the sound of korea

As I learned today, ancient Korea originated somewhere in what is today Manchuria, subsequently China. So in that aspect, I’m just gonna count Dandong as part of Korea…

the sound of Korea.

Starting with Dandong in China, landing in an airport, built in pure socialist china. It was quite a shock stepping out of our plane onto the tarmac. What we left was the grand airport from Beijing, Terminal 3, built for the olympics and one of the prides from China today and we get to see this old crummy but awesome airport. We walked from the Air China B737-300 right to the baggage claim… which was made fully out of tiles, a conveyor belt sunken into the floor and in the middle of it were lots of pots with plants of any kind. From there it was right out into the street. That was it.

Dandong is loud… people talking everywhere, honking all over and people on the promenade making music, trying to escape the advertising loudspeakers in central Dandong.

There wasn’t really a difference between night and day. On the shores of Yalu River, you could see right over to North Korea, imagining an international timezone border. It was pitch-dark on the other side with a 300000 soul city being there. Just one light was lit, while Dandong was one great example of light-smog. In the hotel room, the same: noise all over. BTW… every night they’d call up my room to ask: “Lady-massage, yes or no?” Lack of trust let me always say “no”. I must have seemed like someone lonely. I think I am, but that’s another story. Somehow the whole room was trimmed for paid pleasures. The minibar had, among other things, condoms, chinese versions of spanish fly and viagra and see-through lingerie for both women and men… sealed of course. Next time in Dandong, i’ll stay in the crown plaza… a bit outside, but so silent, that you’d just relax.

So, the next day, we went in.

North Korea, DPRK, whatever…

First sound, a whistle from some distant train… and silence. After the formalities at the border, we went through Sinujiu and I managed to take one picture of two despite our speed… it was already late and getting too dark to take pictures while in motion. (I took this picture a year ago, while on the same route as well as the next pictures of Pyongyang.)

Over land, there was that typical sound while standing on a deserted acre, with occasionally a truck passing by or the quiet murmuring of people. As it got dark, there was literally no light everywhere. As if the entire country was ordered to keep lights off because of a strategic blackout, with the difference, that there was no electrical infrastructure anyhow. The only lights were from the few oncoming trucks or from some people with blue-whitish shining LED flashlights.

Arriving in Pyongyang wasn’t any different, except for the buildings with single lit rooms. Many of them had energy saving lamps, some had tungsten light bulbs. But the sounds were just… absent. Cicadas (giant mutant-like crickets making a hell of a lot of noise) at most, our engine roaring but when it died down… nothing. In Caracas, I had always some background noise… but here, it’s only crickets.

And early in the morning, about at 7am… Sirens go off, followed by propaganda style chanting through loudspeakers, mounted all over the city…

So those were some sounds from Korea, all the way from the noise in Dandong, to the sounds of the land, the silence of pyongyang and the sound of crickets, my typing and iTunes, with big brother eavesdropping on every sound of korea. 1:45 am.

Notice: Pictures 4,5 and 6 on this blogpost were taken a year ago. I’ll keep the good stuff coming as soon as I set off with my bike alone in Pyongyang. #anxiety

Dandong by Night

Some impressions of Dandong by Night, shot just a few hours ago, submitted to Europe to upload it on youtube.