Day 6 in Beijing

Friday 20th November is my sixth day in Beijing.

My manager from Shanghai came to Beijing for a business trip and when he visited the Beijing office we had a brief meeting. I met him back in Auckland when he flew to NZ for a business trip, he's a very nice and interesting guy. Coming from a Singaporian background and now working for a New Zealand company in China, this is already diverse enough. He's very casual but yet serious about work; gives this feeling of superior in the office but he's joking with all staffs all the time. My colleagues and I all like him very much, he brings joy to the office.

During lunch time we went out for lunch together, it was my manager's shout. We chose this Japanese restaurant in the Henderson Building next to ours. This Japanese restaurant offers set dishes like donburi etc, as well as lunch sets. We all picked our own set lunch and my manager also ordered a plate of fried vegies and sashimi sushi for us to share. I ordered this lunch menu calle '照烧鸡', the menu didn't really say what flavour it is or whatever, but I assumed it's Japanese style chicken so I picked it. A set lunch menu in this restaurant is around 50-60RMB, which is very cheap for NZ but considerably expensive for a lunch in China. The set menu comes with a main, rice, miso soup, steamed egg, salad, green tea. The rest of my colleagues all ordered different things and it's so weird that our food came in really weird order. By the time the last set meal came, the first two among us already finished their meal! We asked the waitress so many times where's the remaining set lunches and they just kept on asking us to wait. Eventually mine came second to last and it was a pot of hot soup with vegies and beef. That's right, it's BEEF! I don't understand why does '照烧鸡 is beef, but yeah, apparently it's a japanese style dish. My meal was fantastic and I was so full after this. I can say that it is definitely the most favourite place for me, and it's so much cheaper in comparison to New Zealand. mmmmmmmm foooooood

Tonight is the first Firday night for all four of us in Beijing, China; so we decided: to go out and have a look at Beijing nightlife!!! WOOHOOOO!!! This is the most interesting story of the day!

I got home after having dinner with Josi at around 9.30pm, but then we had to wait at home until Gerard comes home from work. He had a welcome dinner with his workmates and we were waiting until 11pm until he came home. Although it is quite late for us (especially Gerard and Josi still have work the next day) but we still decided to go out and have a look. Jian's friends (Xiaogfang and Wilson) are already out in town and waiting for us to join them. They texted us to go to this bar called VICS at Sanlitun 三里屯, this is the most popular nightlife place in Beijing.

VICS is located in the north east gate of the Worker's Stadium in Beijing. Around the Worker's Stadium there are many statues of people doing all kinds of sports. I suddenly had this idea in mind that I want to copy the actions of these statues, and Gerard agreed to join me!!!! haha, look at our crazy photos!!! (especially the one Gerard did alone, haha, it craked us up so bad)

When we entered into the 三里屯 area (by taxi) we saw many clubs and bars and studios open. Flashing neon lights; loud music; and an increase amount of foreigners! VICS is the top for clubs and bars in Beijing, and I must say that the external and internal design of this pub is amazing. VICS is very famous for its themed parties, and I just found out online that there's a Lady Gaga's night on the 26th, and if you dress up like Lady Gaga then you can enter and get drinks for free.

So all of us arrived at VICS and ready to go in. To our surprise, there's actually entry fee of 50RMB. Maybe it's just NZ that offers free entry to pubs, but yeah it is quite surprising for us that we had to pay to get in. We decided to walk around the area and take some photos first before we go in. Worker's Stadium in Beijing is often used for concerts and shows and it is now a big night life host in Beijing. We walked around the area and saw many interesting sites and shops. We found Hooters

(the American neighbourhood restaurant) but it was then closed when we wanted to go in for some late night food. We are quite surprised that restaurants and shops around this nightlife central area are mostly closed; isn't this the best time to open and get some sales? Eventually we decided in one restaurant, again, a famous chain restaurant from USA and it's EVERYWHERE in China: KFC!!! Chinese KFC is quite intersting, for example, they offer Chinese style breakfast, e.g. specialty egg and duck congee 皮蛋瘦肉粥, soy bean milk and fried bread stick 豆浆油条 etc. It is our disappointment that KFC in China sells more burger (well mostly burgers) rather than actual pieces of chicken, you can only choose a snack for 2 pieces of chicken or a big bucket of chicken for family feast. The funny thing we discovered is that instead of normal hot bun that we see in New Zealand, Chinese KFC offers carrot bun!!! That's right, carrot bun!!! We didn't dare to try the flavour but we just thought it was so funny and weird. Also, KFC in China offered this juice drink called 九珍果果汁, we thought it was quite interesting and eventually Jordan decided to get one. To our biggest dissatisfaction, it is just like powder + water = fruit flavoured water; it also leaves this really weird aftertaste in your mouth that's just...undesirable. Btw, did you know that KFC in China sells shoestring fries rather than the thick (and healthier) fries like in NZ??? This is so weird, because the whole time I had a feeling of eating McD fries, lol.

After KFC we decided to go into VICS. The entry fee into VICS is 50RMB and there's NO ID CHECK!!!! We even asked if they want our ID, haha, we're such a foreigner in this place! The coolest thing I think about this club (maybe other clubs too in Beijing) is the stamp they give you when you go in. They still put stamps on your wrist like pubs in China, but then soon we realised 'HEY!! the stamps are gone! it's not on our wrist anymore!!!'. The ones in NZ is like ink stamps where it stays on your skin for at least the night and you really have to try hard to wash it off. But we discovered that we don't have the stamps on our wrists anymore. When we are inside the club we saw the stamps on our wrists again, and it was beccause of the infrared lights inside the club!! How cool is this??!?!?!?!? So we don't actually get ink on our skin but stamps that will only show under these special lights. Just like how a white shirt will show special effect of colouring under these neon lights. I think this is really cool and better than getting ink on my skin! Love it!! We met our friends inside the club. The club was soooooo packed with people, each step we take we have to be extra cautious and trying extra hard, simply because there are too many people in this club. To my surprise: I think there's more than 80% non-asian people in this club!!! Later on I heard that VICS is the most popular pub for all foreigners and many famous stars and celebrities will visit VICS when they're in China. Cocktails & shots in VICS is around 40-50RMB each (so pricy!!!!) but lucky I don't drink, haha, otherwise my wallet will be empty by the time I get out.

Music in VICS are mostly techno + hip hop, every now and then I'll hear some recent top of the chart music, like 'Boom Boom Pow' by Black Eyed Peas (but with techno background); to be honest, not my favourite. Interestingly, this club plays quite a bit of latin american music, haha, and people get quite excited and high about it too! The thing that I don't like very much about VICS is that people can smoke indoors. Well, I guess all clubs in China allows that because even though there's law saying that you cannot smoke in public, but it's just so common to smoke and really sometimes people just don't follow the rules. Music is another issue for me too, personally techno is not the type of dancing music for me. BUT!!! Highly recommend anyone visiting Beijing to go and have a look at VICS (if you're ready to pay 50RMB). It is a classy and sensational pub, definitely worth going for, an eye-opener experience.

When we got out from the dancefloor, I saw this very interesting fishtank around the front desk. It's a fishtank for jellyfish!!!!! How cool is this!!! There are like 20+ jellyfishes in this fishtank, and they're moving around by opening up like an umbrella then suddenly close their body to create that force and push themselves around. The waterflow in the fishtank is circulating so the jellyfishes are constatnly being washed around in a circle, it's sooo cool!!!

We were all very tired from the whole week's of travelling around Beijing (and with the not so exciting music in VICS, haha) we deicded to go home and rest for another long day coming our way. VICS, highly recommended.