China, Beijing 1

October 11, 2010: My CS host guided me through Beijing’s metro system to the small apartment, which has a much nicer view than the one in Ulaanbaatar. Right in the middle of a residential area in southern Beijing, the crescent moon on the left, the sunset on the right.

October 12, 2010: The next day my CS host showed me Wangfujing Street - a wide shopping boulevard. A side street off it was full of Chinese delicacies. So besides cicadas (pretty OK) I also tried small intestine soup (not recommended!), all sorts of unidentifiable stuff and, of course, scorpions. The scorpions were actually surprisingly tasty.

Even though I’d only been in Beijing for two days, I already felt incredibly at home. Compared to Ulaanbaatar, it’s like night and day. The streets are clean, the people really friendly and the neighborhoods incredibly safe. No obvious pickpockets, drunk teenagers or gangs looking for trouble. A really good meal in a restaurant costs about 4-5 € (several courses incl. drinks), a filling street snack about 0.30 €, a metro ride right across the city 0.20 € (bus 0.04 €), and a taxi across town (20-25 km) about 4 €. Everything is incredibly cheap and surprisingly good. There are restaurants and snack stalls on every corner. Lots of Chinese people eat out (breakfast, lunch and dinner) because cooking at home hardly saves any money - which makes total sense.

Here’s a little anecdote about a pretty much worst-case scenario. Once I was in China, I obviously needed to get some cash at some point. So I go to an ATM, put in my card and click through the menu. Enter PIN … nothing happens … enter PIN again … nothing happens. Switch to another ATM, enter PIN … „wrong PIN“. Wrong PIN??? I tried three more banks, but somehow my credit card just didn’t seem to get along with any of them. Luckily my CS host provided me with enough Chinese money to take care of the most important things, like applying for my Nepalese visa, without any trouble. Later, once my computer was online, I wanted to call my bank via Skype. For that I need Skype credit. For that I have a PayPal account. Unfortunately, though, PayPal decided it had to block my account because I was logging in from another country (what nonsense!). As of today (October 21, 2010) I still haven’t managed to get my PayPal account unblocked. I couldn’t top up Skype with my credit card either, because it seems to be blocked. … What a wonderful feeling. Stuck in the middle of a foreign country with a blocked credit card and a blocked PayPal account. Sure, I still have a few other ways to get by, but those are strictly for emergencies. Luckily I was allowed to use my CS host’s Skype account to contact my bank. They unblocked my credit card without any fuss and wished me luck at the next ATM… No sooner said than done. Next day, new ATM, new attempts. Attempt 1: nothing happens. Attempt 2: wrong PIN (I typed it in correctly!). Attempt 3 (sweaty palms, pounding heart) … … … rattle-rattle-rattle - a weight the size of a mountain range lifted off my shoulders. The slot opened and a few hundred yuan smiled up at me. Moral of the story: everything works out in the end. :)