The day for us to part ways came nearer, so a few of them suggested that we should go out to the city for some drinks one night. After doing some research, they found a place called Sanlitun which was famous for its nightlife, bars and club, so we decided to head there one evening after classes. It was easy to access the place through subway, and at the entrance, there were a few Tibetan ladies peddling their goods on the ground.
We had to walk a distance to the restaurant we wanted to go, but it was great fun seeing how lavishly most of the restaurants were decorated around this area. Also, there were a significantly larger number of foreigners both living here and visiting the place, and people don’t point at you while shouting ‘Lao wai’, unlike some other places.
We soon came to a large area which housed a large cluster of shops of famous brands.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to locate the restaurant we were looking for. Fortunately, there was a customer service personnel who came up to us and tried to help us. She then called a customer service helpdesk and eventually they helped us to locate it. Apparently the restaurant was hidden, tuck away at the back of the alleys which led away from these gleaming shops.
The restaurant served mostly seafood, so we ordered a few seafood platters and fish and chips to go around. We were then joined by two other of our friend’s friend who so happened to be in Beijing at the moment. After finished up the food and drinks, we moved on to a second bar. It was still early, so this area was still very deserted.
Also spotted this signage which set us into fits of laughter.
By late evening, the 3 of us Malaysians decided that we would skip the clubs (as we are not very accustomed to it) so we decided to head back to the school first. The alleys were now full of life, with small stalls selling food, books and cigarettes.
One of us decided that he wanted to purchase something from the Adidas store, so we followed him in and fooled around with their exercise equipments.
We took the subway back home, and it was beginning to rain heavily. Took us a very long time to try to hail a cab, while ignoring those unlicensed ones shouting out for us to take their car instead. We were well drenched and cold by the time we managed to flag one down to bring us back to the school, but thanks for the heater in the teacher’s toilet which we managed to figure out how to work it.
この長い旅で 