More Qianmen and Dashalan
Last weekend when I visited Beijing I stayed in the Qianmen area at the same hostel as the previous visit. Staff is good, it is accessible, the price for winter accommodation is right and the surroundings are interesting. It was a bit far from my intended destinations but I was prepared to put up with that. Hostels in that area are a bit pricey.
The blood collection bus did pretty good business during the weekend but had no one outside it on Monday morning.
A corridor area for recreation on one of the main streets in the area. I was miserable because I’d slept poorly on Friday night. A quilt, a doubled woollen blanket and an inadequately operating air conditioner hadn’t been enough to keep me warm the previous night. However, each day there was at least one person lying on the narrow wooden benches, covered with bedding and trying to sleep or ignore the world. Saturday shone with a beautiful blue sky but the wind was vicious and it really was very cold. The rest of the weekend was warmer and I got an additional quilt and column heater plus I turned an empty water bottle into a bed warmer as I had an electric kettle.
This is a more traditional street running parallel to the renovated tourist streets of Qianmen nad Dashalan. It and the ones running from it were thronged with people and stalls.
A steaming cauldron of something. It and a few others I’ve seen look too much like they are composed from whatever happens to be available and some of it is unpalatable to a western sensibility. It didn’t inspire me to partake. I had some kebabs from the chef opposite.
This ornate frontage was sandwiched between a place advertising billiards and foot massages and a fast food restaurant. One night there were many people standing outside the restaurant quietly singing. There was nothing to indicate the reason.
A display of the feathered shuttlecocks used in the popular game jianzi. The small son of the owner saw me taking photos and immediately ran inside, gathered some hats from stock and started playing peek a boo.
A crisp sunny Saturday morning with the national flag flying over the roast duck restaurant in Dashalan St.
Christmas at Starbucks. On Monday I did some shopping and needing a rest and to kill some time before my train I headed for Starbucks at Qianmen. This and a Christmas tree in Nan Luo Gu Xiang Hutong were the only evidence of Christmas that I saw. Last year I was in the Wangfujing shopping area and there were many Christmas symbols including some enormous Christmas trees. However, that is an area of large shops and shopping centres, much more western and commercialised than the places I visited on the weekend.