Well, I've been here over 24hrs now, and so I guess it's time to give my first impressions of Beijing. I have to admit that my first thoughts on the place were along the lines of "what the hell have I gotten myself into?". Having said that I wasn't really in great form (travelling for nearly 20hrs will do that to you), and the local temperature was -7 when I arrived with a bit of a frost fog around. All I've really seen of the city so far is the few blocks around where my apartment is, so it's not really fair to judge the place on that either. Im a good 45mins out fromt eh center of town apprantly, it's at the end of one of the metro lines and I'll have to change lines twice to get into the center. At least there's a lot of shops and stuff around my area - there's even a Starbucks, a McDonalds, a KFC and a Pizza Hut. I'm going to try to stay away from them as much as I can though, I can get them back home after all. The local supermarket is mad - you can get anything there from TVs and the latest Nokia phones to stationary and shoes and bras (not that I'd be buying bras or anything...). I'm maybe going to try to take the metro into town this evening to take a look around, but I'm still fairly tired after the trip so that might have to wait another day.
The place is looking a bit nicer out there now tho - it started snowing this morning just as I was getting up, and hasn't really stopped yet as far as I can see. It's a good job I brought my neck warmer, cap & gloves from the ski trip with me.
The language thing is going to be a killer though, where I'm staying. Most of the shops have no english at all, not even pinyin (which wouldn't be all that much use to me but would be better than nothing). I'm going to try to do my best to pick up some mandarin but until then it's sign language. At least I've found one good restaurant anyway. We went out for lunch today, to celebrate my arrival, and it seems the place they brought me gives emplyee discount to Sun employees, due to it being so close to the office. We brought along the bottle of Irish whisky I brought over as a present, so it was a nice relaxed lunch all round :-) Cheap too - 330 Yuan for 10 people! That's like €30 - you'd pay that for one person at home!
Nearly quitting time here now, wonder whether I'll have much energy to go into take my first look at Tianamen Square..... I'm not sure at what point I'll be able to put pictures up, as the internet connection in the apartment isn't working with my laptop at the moment.As soon as it is, and as soon as I actually take some, I'll put them up!
Monday, February 06, 2006
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1 comment:
You will have no problems. You are in the captial of China, the plazas, supermarkets will have all you ever need. Mainland Chinese people only go to HK to get their designer bags/clothes as the fake stuff is so realistic in China. Apart from that, you should have access to alot of stuff. Granted they may look a little different. Get takeaway from restaurants, rice and some meat (lots of roast meat, no worries there). Supermarkets should have ready meals now. Prob don't even have to heat it up, someone will be preparing it for you there and then. If they have it in HK, they defo have it in Beijing. ;)
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