Ni hao true believers! And welcome back to my Spring festival Beijing blog. This one picks up directly were the last one finishes so If you haven't read 'Spring festival: Beijing part one' then get a move on and do so! Let the fun times roll:

The next day most people were too tired to get out of bed however myself, Tim and Ed were up and ready to go explore Beijing and decided to take the subway out to the Olympic stadium and park. Once we arrived we wandered down to the lake encompassing the center of the park. The lake itself had all but frozen over but, as Beijing was only just below 0 degrees, I wouldn't have risked walking on it. Not that that stopped the Chinese from pushing on it slowly and watching the whole thing crack up. You will see many pictures of the wonderful park in my upcoming Beijing photo album however you may notice the photos stop for a while after this point. That is because I was so enthusiastic about my photos I managed to throw the camera into a puddle amongst the ice. Not very smart, I know, but it was quickly recovered and stuffed into a hat to dry out.

There were three things that put me in awe at the Olympic park; the observatory, the stadium and the water cube. The observatory is a huge tower which honestly would not look out of place in a Star Wars movie. It was absolutely huge allowing you to observe the whole city from the top. If you want an impression of what it looks like all you need is to see the buildings of cloud city from episode five of Star wars, it was identical to them. The water cube was simply a very pretty building to look upon yet it was just a large, blue cube. I wish we could have returned to see it light up with an orchestra playing within it however we did not have the time. Finally was the Olympic stadium itself also know as the 'birds nest'. This stadium received a lot of flak for being ugly and abysmal of a building but I have no idea what those people were complaining about. Once you get up close and see the criss crossing steel structure and understand that it's all held up by certain pressure points among the structure it becomes a wonder to behold. If architects of old could see what would be being achieved one hundred years down the line I believe they would have shed a tear of pride at this structure as it truly was wonderful. After this was the less impressive visit to the formerly largest Mcdonalds in the world (now second largest due to the one built for the London games) although we did not eat in it.

When we arrived back most of our companions had managed to drag themselves out of bed and were ready to head out once more. This time we headed to the 798 art district, the same one as when we first arrived in Beijing, but this time we had to get there on our own and had as much time as we wanted once we arrived. All I can say is thank god we put effort into learning Chinese; we had to ask directions a few times, read the bust stop signs (Characters only) and attempt to get the bus stop at our station. Once we finally arrived we looked around all of the galleries and pieces but only three stood out really; one was a Chinese artist who visited America and compiled a series of surrealist paintings depicting various parts of American thought and cultural aspects. Another was a man who painted pieces which encompassed large rural and urban landscapes to great detail including reflections amongst the water, birds in the sky and people looking from windows. They were truly spectacular pieces of art. Finally was the largest waste of four minutes of my life in a long time. We went along a side alley into what was essentially a ginat warehouse. Once inside the lights dimmed and a projection was shone onto the largest wall. It showed slowly three great garage doors lifting to reveal a dessert landscape (it took two minutes to rise) and we stood staring waiting for something to happen. Then the doors come down again and that was it. Very profound. Turns out I'm not the arty type as I said 'That was a load of' boomingly shouting a word which rhymes with 'height'.

After our excursion to 798 was one of the stranger evenings we had. We caught wind of a Ex-pats Irish pub, a true pub, called Paddy O'Sheas. We headed out into the city to find it which took a long time and walking past far too many 'massage parlors' until we finally came upon the doors. Once we arrived we discovered it was a pub quiz night. Excellent, I thought. Upon entering, squirming our way amongst the packed room and finally finding a table my opinions quickly changed. It was everything like a pub back home; old men sitting make football jokes and talking about young women, football shirts littering the ceiling and walls, pint glasses everywhere and the usual pub banter flying. And I absolutely hated it. Never have I felt so uncomfortable in China. We sat listening to hecklers shouting stupid answers out at the pub quiz and all I could think was is this really what life has come to? Is this really what I'm going back to? The thought made me shudder as I gulped down a Carlsberg straight from the pint glass. God help me if I ever here 'REFERRE OF MAN-A-GER' ever again. Pub quizzes, it seems, are not my sort of seen. I left rather shaken by the presence of so many 'foreigners' and headed back to the hostel.

The next day Me, ED, Stephen (Rowland) and Marcus decided to make an epic trip outside of Beijing to try and scale the Fragrant mountains. This involved going seventeen miles outside the city on various bus routes all of which I'd read from comments on the tripadivisor page. It was a long journey and in all honesty i'm amazed we made it but once we arrived it was more than worth it. The mountain itself was not outrageously large however from the bottom to the peak seemed an age away. Along the path there were reconstructed buildings of the China of old, all of which gave a brief description of there being. Every single one ended with 'survived until it was burnt down by Angle-French invaders'. I felt much like I was amongst the enemy as we wandered along that mountain path knowing only two hundred years early my ancestors had made the same journey only burning and pillaging along the way. It was an epic trek though. Marcus put some gangster rap on to get us motivated along the way and at times I though we would never reach the top but after much sweat, fury and photographs with the locals we finally arrived at the peak. It was a wonderful sight though rather sickening as we had managed to climb higher than the pollution so just below us could be viewed a murky cloud of societies wrong doings. Otherwise it was incredibly beautiful giving a very god view of the city as well as all the shrubbery and trees which encompassed the mountain. On the descent I did get the shock of my life however. We all approached an empty, deserted looking building and wandered through it. One by one we entered a room. The two in front both just went 'Oh god' and held there chest so I though I wouldn't be shocked but as i entered there was a man standing staring distantly beyond me in a dark black robe and I died a little on the inside. What kind of person just goes and stands in abandoned huts in there ceremonially robes? I mean really, what on earth was he doing there? We continued on down the mountain after that slight shock and managed t see a few more reconstructed, previously burnt down by the British. buildings along the way. All in all a fantastic day although I did smell like a pig having decided to wear a very smart shirt (don't ask) to scale the mountain.

That night we decide upon a night out but this time something a little different; WuDouKou district. This is essentially the students district of Beijing were a lot of Chinese and Foreign students congregate to socialise. It was a long way outside of the center but once we arrived it was well worth it. The first bar we went to is rather well known and located above a coffee shop. Once inside we found ourselves surrounded by third and fourth year university students (we were the youngest there, not that you could tell) but it had a great atmosphere. The next bar was even larger and we were offered student discount cards so a pint was only five yuan (Cracking stuff). We hung around in there almost all night, occasionally popping downstairs to the underground nightclub Revolution. We talked to a few of the students who were about, most studying Chinese, so we were the worst at Chinese in the bar but that didn't matter as everyone was foreign. I think I found a home in Beijing that night in stark contrast to Paddy O'Sheas; it seems I'm already primed and ready for life amongst the students once I return home. Student areas are where I belong.

The next day I myself was feeling a little rough so we all decided to just relax for the morning until lunchtime when we had arranged to meet the infamous 'Beijing Mike', our Project Representative within China. A lazy morning was nice after all the get up and goes we'd had the previous few days and when Mike arrived (it was a nice reunion) we all headed out together in a large group for food. We eventually ended up in a BBQ restaurant where Mike ordered a large variety of foods for us all to try including something I though I'd never put in my mouth; testicles. We munched down most of the BBQ fairly quickly and when the sheep's testies were brought out on skewers I wasn't quite sure what to think. Turns out, there quite ok, if not rather nice. You did have to bite rather hard though as there were very tough, especially when you reach the tubes. You really have to tear through those. After an hour or two of discussion we parted ways with Mike and continued relaxing with Mike. But Me and Tim could not relax for long. It was the big night; the Havok gig.

We headed down to the venue at about seven and grabbed a bear before the show and as I stood there all I could think in my head was 'My people, you have gathered'. I was surrounded by people wearing band shirts for all the bands I've come to love and adore in the metal scene, long black hair and booze. It truly was heavenly. The first two bands that played were from Beijing and were right up my alley. However there music was rather slow and riff filled so a solid hour of head banging did ensue. The third band on were from Taiwan and they picked up the pace playing some good old fashioned thrash. The crowd started moving and before you know everyone was moshing, dancing and head banging. An extremely good warm up for when the headliners walked out; Havok. If there is one thing I did not thing I would be doing in China it was watching a band like Havok tear up Beijing. This is when the crowd really went wild so for the next one and a half hours I literally did not stop moving, moshing and circle pitting. Havok put on an absolutely amazing set and did not disappoint on any level. Extremely tired and the sweatiest I'd been in a long time me and Tim headed back to the hostel and crashed.

I awoke from the next day with a dreadful bangover AKA an extremely sore and stiff neck and as most people had been out until five am the night prior we decide to take our last day in Beijing easy. We gathered a crew of Me, Ed, Dan, Erhorn and Tim and headed out to another frozen lake. We had tried to find this lake on our first time in Beijing five months earlier and failed miserably however this time we did reach it. There were people sledging, ice skating and playing on the ice and what amazed me was that it was barley frozen. Honestly. Around the edged os the lake it was almost completely water and the cracks ran thick all around up until the center which made me think the center was artificially frozen. We did so lots of fish stuck in the ice though, which was rather interesting, and made us wonder who quickly the ice must have frozen to allow that to happen. We did not dare trek onto the ice ourselves (Dan and Erhorn had a student sink under and die doing exactly that) so we headed through many winding Hutongs (essentially small Chinese back alleys) until we reached a main road.

Once we reached the road we found the best coffee shop I've ever been in; The time capsule. It was well priced, had good drinks and very welcoming staff members. Once we settled down we all ordered, Dan got a baileys coffee which was absolutely gorgeous, and relaxed and chatted. They also had a guitar which I swiftly began playing however when I decided to play an aggressive song dedicated to the Harbin Russian youth hostel (more on this point in future blogs) I managed to slice my finger open sending blood cascading down upon the guitar strings and all over the shop floor. It was the most metal thing I've ever done. Once that was plastered up we got a Polaroid picture taken of us by the owner and another one taken for Dan. Turns out your not supposed to shake it like a Polaroid picture as that greatly damages its quality. We were informed we had to leave a postcard to ourselves to be hung on the ceiling and that one year later you must come back and see if you achieved what you wrote on the post card and you never know. I might just be back there one day with a bit of luck. We returned to the hostel Rosie arrived who we had not seen in a long time so we all sat and chatted for a long time in the hostel which was nice but Me, Rowland, Erhorn, Tim and Dan headed to bed early. The next day at five am we would be heading off to catch a twelve hour train to Beijing. We fell into slumber knowing the next day would be one of our toughest yet.

And with that I believe it's time to take a break from my travels and add some comments. Beijing for the second, in the same hostel, was a very strange time as it allowed me to contrast my initial feelings on arrival with my current feelings of the city. A few things had certainly changed' for one I felt completely comfortable wandering the city without assistance. On arrival this simply was not an option as I could neither communicate with anyone nor read any signs however the second time round this was less of a problem and I was able to navigate with relative ease. I also got a chance to compare Beijing to other places in China and I can definitely say that Beijing is my favorite city of China hands down. It's such a unique and wonderful city with a mix of youth culture and sub cultures to get lost in. My best description of Beijing is that it is a western city made by the Chinese. You have to visit to truly understand what I mean; the western influence is there but then again so is the large Chinese influence. I truly love Beijing and If I ever chance upon China again in the future it's somewhere I can see myself settling

Well that's all for this time readers have do tune in next time for the Harbin experience; there will be laborious train journeys, freezing temperatures and a Europe twist,

Until next time,

Excelsior!