Beijing!

Finally we make it to the capital, the big cheese, the last destination, bei-jing bitches and wasnt it a bitch to get there or at least to get the tickets. because we were going to beijing for the holiday weekend it was - so they told us - impossible to get tickets, 8 sleeper trains sold out, sleeper bus. sold out we even tried to find some touts but they didint exist so we just asked again and she gave us a day train, not that hard really. on the train we met a chinese girl called rei who had been living in shoreditch for 6 months, a lot better than cardiff she says. she was also only the second person ive met who knew that bournemouth specialises in media studies.

anywho we check into our rooms and then go for some dinner. after dinner i come back to find 4 swedish girls in our room, cashback. it was one of there birthdays so they were on a big one so me and pierre obviously obliged. we went to the bar street sank a few beers and cocktails, i still had no money because of shanghai, but pierre and the girls bought me some stuff, one of tehm called jo bought me a blow job (shooter). anyway we decided to head to the club because we wanted to dance. on the way to teh club i noticed that pierre was getting really friendly with one of the girls called martina, while i was walking along with the birthday girl, sophie, who unfortunately had a boyfriend, anyway we got to the club and it cost 7 quid to get in and there was only an hour left me and sophie turned around and theres pierre lipsing this girl in teh car park, fair game (pierre - 'i was thinking i'll get off with her in the club but then i just decided to get off with her then' playa) jo and the other girl emelie were nowhere to be seen because jo had broken her foot or something. anyway us 4 got a cab back and i got to sit with the love birds, lucky me! when we got back me and sophie went outside to smoke a spliff and pierre and martina joined us before they joined us sophie was telling me about her 'boyfriend' i was like oh yeh. anyway when we got back inside pierre went out like a light, i get into bed and sophie just sits on the floor by me, i hold her hand and she climbs in! she didnt want to get freaky just a kiss and a spoon but was nice all the same.

the next day we made a meek attempt at tourism and walked to tiananmen before we started cahtting to some chinese guys who we asked where we could get some suits. we got some suits measured - pierre got a grey fitted cashmere and i got a light blue straight cut polyester/silk. we went back to the hostel where we met some dutch guys. it was there first night in china so they were on a big one too. the swedish girls were on a quiet one.

we searched time out beijing and settled on going to babyface - the big club chain in china. after a few beers in the hostel, for me anyway (pierre had been drinking since 5) we got the cab there and got in to find a decent club not to packed but not empty feeling. we got some more beers, and eventually the chinese guys started showing off and poring us drinks. pierre had to go home about an hour through absolute pissheadness (he ended up being sick in tiannanmen square, which is pretty cool seeing as spitting in tiannanmen square is a hangable offence). a group of chinese girls come over to dance and i start dancing with one, her friend tells me that it is her birthday, coolio, i eventuallky get off with her but the same friend comes up to me afterwards and says 'she is good girl but u must not make love to her', what??! anyway i got lots of drinks from them, i tried to askm my girl what her friend meant but she didnt really speak english so we had a big not love making session outside before some man told us to go back in. while i was outside flip and sandro, the dutch guys left leaving me in the club by with the girls which was fine until they decided to leave. they were like where are your friends? gone home. do you like pool? er yeh, do u want to come to a pool hall? ok. in the cab to the pool hall i did my standard chinese thing where i ask them how old they are with them normally being older than i think, it turned out that they were fucking 16, which deduced in the morning meant it was her 16th birthday (the advise now seemed probably the soundest i'd had in a while), hey the swede was turning 21, it averages out i guess. i asked them how old they thought i was - 24! which i then corrected them on much to the delight of her friends 19 year old boyfriend 'you are older than me - understand'. the pool hall was wicked, a proper one situated in an underground car park, the cab home was long and expensive but the taxi driver gave me a contemplative cigarrette which i smoked alone in the back of the cab. when i got back (at 5.30) sandro was on msn to his girlfriend, 'hey man did u blow ur balls!' he says slapping me in the nuts, 'nah man she was only 16' - 'so what, how old are you?' good point.

we woke up the next day and i told pierre about everything that happened the night before and then this strange dutch guy called D just magic-ed this huge red bucket from his bed, i dunno why but it was fucking hilarious. later on we went to the olympic site with all the swedish girls which was a real disapointment. what it made me realise is that beijing is still not ready for these games which are going to be hosted in 4 months. it is not only the stadia, in which there was a massive metal fence hording which didnt allow tou to see it properly, teh whole town centre as well is a building site. The Hutongs (old chinese ghetto) where we were staying are being left alone apart from the bits along the main road which the tourists might see. ah well its not up to me, if china fucks these games up its their problem.

that night we again looked in teh time out and went out with flip, sandro and the swedish girls, the clu we went to was shit, and was made even shitter by teh fact that i tried to have a spliff out side with teh rest of my weed but was so drunk that i dropped it all on the ground. the club we went to afterwards charged us 60 on the door and believe you me it wasnt worth it there were about 20 people in it mostly westerners and they were dressed in the strangest attire. men in over the shoulder thongs, women all wearing red feather boas etc, overall it was a disapointing night apart from the bit that i just remembered when the swedish girls woke me up from my early evening nap saying 'we've got plans for you' despite what i hoped they meant they actually meant that we were to egg the peking duck restaurant that had ripped them off we did so with aplomb and duly ran deep into the Hutong. i went back the next day and saw my second floor strike had not been cleaned and had left a stain. cashback!

The day afyer we thought we'd better do some shit so we went to the forbidden city, which was shit. we spent about 2 hours there and it just a big chinese space, half of which was covered in scaffold. i cleansed my paedophilic self passing through the gate of heavenly purity but otherwise we didnt do much. pierre cleverly stated that 'every chinese sight or attraction should have a sign on it saying PREPARE TO BE UNDERWHELMED' we had a quiet night that night because we were doing the great wall the next day, it was the swedish girls last night so i still managed to get a bit drunk and go to bed reletively late, and wake up drunk the next day.

eating dumplings for breakfast whilst still drunk is surprisingly funny especially when you are watching a australian guy eating scrambled eggs on toast at about 80 mph, the canadian chinese guy from my room who loved to say 'Holy Smokes!' actually told me to stop being a dick.
The Great wall tour which we did was called teh secret wall because it was a unrenovated section with absolutely no tourists on it. the vies from teh top were fucking awesome and you dont really understand teh scale of it until you are phisically on it. Mao said that you are not truly a man until you walk on it so thats ticked off the list. are guide was a tiny 70 year old chinese lady who must have been just over 4 foot tall, but she climbed up those slopes like a fucking mountain goat. i dont think teh hostel actually paid her but we gave her are plastic bottles at the end which made her pretty happy. they gave us a massive meal (vegetarian!) afterwards before the 2 1/2 hour drive back.

when we got back we found that that the swedish girls had left us quelque'chose including a nice warm weather jacket for pierre - he has, after all, so our tailor said, a female's frame. afterwards we picked up are suits and then headed to the pearl market for some haggling fun. i got a massive jacket for about 12 quid and some fake polo, polo shirts and jumpers for a tenner collectively. we also almost brought a chinese woman to tears getting some fake footy shirts for 6 quid between us, but in the end they still make a profit. in teh end pierre was just haggling for fun bringing out quotes like 'i would rather go to mongolia in a t-shirt than pay 200 for that jacket. the day was fucking awesome apart from the dinner which happened to be our last meal in china which ended up costing a ridiculous amount, my tofu came with beef on it and it left us with no money. needless to say we settled for a few beers that night but we did meet an absolute sex tourist who started telling us his stories from thailand including one about him in a dentists chair with catwoman sucking him off, a nurse sitting on his face and an air hostess with a finger in his arse and just as he was about to shoot his load his mate whips the curtain open dividing him and the rest of teh bar an says hurry up mate we want to go clubbing. Archie be warned, or look forward however you want to see it.

we got up at 6 the next day to get teh first leg of our trans-siuberian adventure which went off without any serious hitches, and said bye bye to china.