Kinkkinen juttu: Korean food, test tube beer and Simatai

Greetz!

The weekend started off on Friday evening with some stand-up comedy via laptop and playing one round of uno-cards. The 1.8 euro Chinese wine resembled mostly juice concentrate as it was sickeningly sweet.. Good thing I also drink Finnish ciders, otherwise the wine would have been a lost cause. Come taxi we went to this nice, not so noisy and populated Helen's cafe. There were some very interesting (probly at least to some extent due to my then prevailing state) U.S. and Spanish people, with whom I chatted while tasting the beer from this 3 litre test tube.

Having waken up in the Saturday morning with a mild hangover we decided to head off to downtown Beijing to buy some stuff. For my part, the outcome was: two pair of shoes (one normal, one running; total 20 euros, overpaid them big time), one pair of excercise pants and one pair of jeans. Now I finally could do some jogging and not use the same pants all the time - nice.

After this too long trip Jani, Antti and me decided to go to eat some Korean food. WHAT A MISTAKE! What we thought we ordered to the table could not have been further from the truth. In the end we got some table-grilled meat, which mainly tasted of something like chicken's stomach (the texture, the crunchiness); the next cusine was supposed to be chicken. Yeah, it was chicken allright, but to our misfortune it was chicken legs (No not the ones they serve in Sodexo, Otaniemi) with their claws and all still attached. Well, you could sort of eat the claws, but the upper part was quite wiry.. The last meal was supposed to be basic pork stew, and it was (again). The pork, however, was merely bones and fat. Well, at least we got the vegetables (too spicy maybe) and actually salad leaves were brought to the table as we consumed them. So, all in all it was time to do a trip to the store to buy some food for our churning tummies.

On Sunday it was time to do the great trip to the Great (fire)Wall of China. Arduous task it was from the beginning having to wake up at 6 A.M. to catch the buses that would leave from near the Qianmen square. Unfortunately, no buses left for Simatai there (only to Badaling, the tourist-inflated spot). So, after wandering around we decided to head off to Dongzhimen bus station for a bus no. 980 to travel to some town near (75 km away) Simatai section. With us were also travelling Marit and Jaan, two Estonian very friendly and cheerful folks. During the trip humour was attained from e.g. Maamme-laulu, Kalev, Finnish language, Estonian language.. What else could one expect :)? Anywheys, we wondered in the walls for about three hours, after which we decided to take the fast way down: a kind of aerial ropeway, which glided down from some part of the wall to near the entrance gate. The carrying apparatus was electric, so it had maybe too much intentional friction to slow the glide down. But beautiful views from maybe 70-80 meters up were worth it.