For those of you who are unfamiliar with Beijing, I live in Dongzhimen, at the NE corner of the second ring road. My office, however, is located all the way in Zhongguancun, which means my daily commute takes an hour and 15 minutes each way. Tiring? Actually, I don't mind it so much. Some people would rather wake up and walk to work, but I've always been the type of person who likes to separate my work life from my personal life. Besides, I personally can't imagine living in Zhongguancun as a new expat in Beijing.
So anyway, here's a snapshot of my daily journey...
This man stands around the corner from my apartment building and swings this weapon around every morning. Unfortunately, you can't see this picture clearly, but there's a sharp blade at the end of the wooden stick. This is something you don't get to see in the States.
According to this poster, a new Beijing leads to a Great Olympics which leads to a great subway for me to ride in every morning. Haha.
Man reading a paper on the subway. But take a closer look at this picture. Someone spray painted his or her dog with the 5 Olympic rings. Don't ask me why, but the locals like to color their dogs. I once saw a purple poodle in Xitang.
Street vendors selling everyday knicknacks outside the Xierqi train station. You can find anything here, from mp3 protector sheets, to fruits and ladies underwear (no joke).
Mickey D's? Nope! Just a street vendor selling chicken wings. This is like the McDowells in Coming to America...
A dumpling restaurant near my office. For 25 - 30 rmb ($3-$4), you can eat 40 dumplings.
Now here's a business idea. For 450 rmb ($66), you can rent one of these bicycles for one year. One year!! That's $0.18 a day. You can basically ride them around the city, and there are various drop-off points all over Beijing.
So there you have it - snapshots of my daily commute. Oh, and I paid a guy 5 rmb today to ride the back of this motorcycle to work!! It was so much fun..
1 comment:
hello,
we are a group of scholars supported by a japanese foundation, and we will be in beijing this oct24-nov 4. we will be visiting zhongguancun as one of our site visits to get a glimpse of typical day-to-day life in beijing. i am thus trying to write a story on zhongguancun, and instead of focusing on just the statistics i am trying to find stories from regular workers/people in zhongguancun, which is why i chanced upon your blogspot when i googled "life in zhongguancun".
may i ask if i may email you to learn more about your experiences?
if ok wiht you kindly email us at buildingabetterasia@gmail.com. our blog is at buildingabetterasia.blogspot.com and official site is at buildingabetterasia.com.
thank you very much.
baba
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