china :: beijing :: general

[sloppyb]

For computer parts in Beijing go to Haidian / WuDaoKou. It is the area just south of BeiDa (Beijing University) and Tsing Hua University.

For hip hop go to Mix or Vick's. They are located in the parking lot of Workers Stadium - west side.

For places to drink I'd hit up Hidden Tree or Kai. They are off sanlitunr enough to get away from the sleezy businessmen and hookers, and there are a lot of young kids partying. Kai serves absinthe.

Like someone said earlier in the post, XiDan is good for clothes. WangFuJing is ok too if you want more name brand stuff... although I don't recommend that you buy name brand things in the Beij.

Chaoyang has some clubs/restaurants/bars too that are also worth a trip.

If you are staying for an expended period of time, one place that you NEED to go is Lush. It is right up the street from Propaganda (a WuDaoKou club).

[xcoldricex]

lush is a nice hangout. vic's and mix are boring - play dated top 40 rap and it gets old after going there a few times. you'll have better luck finding something interesting across the street at yugong yishan. kai had 5 kuai shots early in the night- but that was three years ago i don't know if they're still doing that. probably still a good place to get drunk though. chaoyang park had that black sun bar that was a pretty nice place with reasonable drink prices..

the massage place across the street of the worker's stadium, bodhi, is dope. mon.- thurs, before 5pm (i think) you can get a full-body massage for 78 kuai (~$10) an hour - and you can order unlimited amounts of food and drink while you're there (and you can hang out for awhile after your massage is finished).

[grapz]

Has any1 been to this store in beijing? its called Mess, supposedly they carry headporter/visvim/supreme etc.

http://www.hypebeast.com/2007/03/mess-store-beijing/#more-25251

I'm wondering if its legit

[Sgt_Strider]

don't buy designer clothes in beijing.

Why do you make such a suggestion?

[Sgt_Strider]

For computer parts in Beijing go to Haidian / WuDaoKou. It is the area just south of BeiDa (Beijing University) and Tsing Hua University.

For hip hop go to Mix or Vick's. They are located in the parking lot of Workers Stadium - west side.

For places to drink I'd hit up Hidden Tree or Kai. They are off sanlitunr enough to get away from the sleezy businessmen and hookers, and there are a lot of young kids partying. Kai serves absinthe.

Like someone said earlier in the post, XiDan is good for clothes. WangFuJing is ok too if you want more name brand stuff... although I don't recommend that you buy name brand things in the Beij.

Chaoyang has some clubs/restaurants/bars too that are also worth a trip.

If you are staying for an expended period of time, one place that you NEED to go is Lush. It is right up the street from Propaganda (a WuDaoKou club).

Can Haidan be reached through the public transportation system? I'll be living in Beida. Are all of the Western clothing stores like Zegna located in WangFujing? How much more expensive are we talking about here for western clothes in Beijing?

[Sgt_Strider]

I'm just wondering if anyone here took a train from Beijing to Shanghai? How are the toilets on the trains? From what I have been reading, it sounds really nasty regardless of the classes that one would take. Can someone tell me which class to get so that I would get the "cleanest" bathroom?

What about places to stay? I'm thinking of staying couple of nights in Shanghai and I would prefer to stay at a place that cost under $50/night. Is that possible?

[Guest jeffvyain]

my girlfriend's about to take a 6-week trip to beijing. anyone have any ideas on places to go where she can buy me some cool shit?

looking for anything ranging from clothes to pipes to bags to electronics...whatever it is, i just want it cheap

[l3ootlegs]

I.T store...

that's all i can think of

[Sgt_Strider]

Comeon guys, I need your help here!

[Sgt_Strider]

I.T store...

that's all i can think of

What is I.T store? Are there any good men's stores that's worth going to in Beijing?

[todesengel]

Never done Beijing to Shanghai, but I have travelled other places in China on the train. Bathrooms aren't terrible, but they aren't nice. If you're sensitive to cleanliness of bathrooms though, China is probably not the country for you . To answer your question, higher class should have nicer facilities, apparently first class is actually quite nice. Do be careful though, buying train tickets with reservations in China is a massive pain, and for popular routes (Beijing to Shanghai is probably the most popular route in the country) you often need to buy tickets many days in advance.

If you want to stay in a hostel, you can stay for a few bucks a night. If you wanted a hotel, there should be plenty of option for less than $50 in Shanghai.

[Guest winq]

Never done Beijing to Shanghai, but I have travelled other places in China on the train. Bathrooms aren't terrible, but they aren't nice. If you're sensitive to cleanliness of bathrooms though, China is probably not the country for you . To answer your question, higher class should have nicer facilities, apparently first class is actually quite nice. Do be careful though, buying train tickets with reservations in China is a massive pain, and for popular routes (Beijing to Shanghai is probably the most popular route in the country) you often need to buy tickets many days in advance.

If you want to stay in a hostel, you can stay for a few bucks a night. If you wanted a hotel, there should be plenty of option for less than $50 in Shanghai.

That pretty much sums it up.

My gf went first class and said the toilets are really nice and clean.

tooooooons of places for under $50 a night here.

[azn8oi]

winq's apartment is free (for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee) :p :p

maybe.

Anyways, how much difference in price between the classes is it to ride a train from Beijing to Shanghai? I think I checked Guangzhou to Shanghai before and it was like $120 for Super Sleeper (1st class?). I could be totalllllllly wrong though.

[dizzhizz]

Spend that $120 on an economy class ticket from the likes of China Air and then shit in the comfort of a $50 hotel.

[xcoldricex]

yeah a first class "soft sleeper" compartment is pretty cushy (you'll be in a room with 3 other people though and your bathroom is still not going to be super clean since everyone shares it) - but it'll cost you probably almost as much or as much as a plane ticket.

just take the plane if you're spending that much and are that concerned about cleanliness.... or MAN UP, you're in china for crying out loud - hell i took the hard seat from beijing to shanghai hahaha.

[xcoldricex]

don't buy anything name brand there.

just buy a shitload of dvds and knock offs. there's a few shops with art films near the universities if that's your thing..

if you look hard around xidan you might find some interesting stuff. you can always hit up the wholesale markets if you know any chinese...

[todesengel]

MAN UP

Honestly, I would do this. The only times I've travelled on the train in China have been hectic buying-tickets-2-minutes-before-and-running-to-the-train-without-reservations experiences, and they usually ended up with me huddled in the doorway of the train, squeezed between 15 other people who're trying to do the same thing. BUT you get to talk to people and whatnot, and it can actually be pretty fun. Might as well do what the people do, you know?

Either way though, I guess it depends on your travel style.

[xcoldricex]

yeah. there are like over a million people riding on a train in china at any given moment - it's really part of the chinese experience.. so if you're there travelling and you're not on some cushy business trip or are short on time.. you should really do the trains...

and they aren't that bad really - the train i took in vietnam was worse than china (sheets were mad stained and there was dried blood on the wall hahaha)

[fallen angels]

cheap place to stay in Shanghai? my favorite is the Wang Kai hotel rooms in Nanjing Dong Lu (nanjing east road), it's located literally right next door to the Uniqlo and a subway station entrance. i think its on the 5th floor, so you need to go into the Wang Kai photography store on the first floor and go to the elevator in the back and take it up to the 5th floor. the location is seriously perfect, you're in the middle of the funnest pedestrian/shopping area in Shanghai, quick access to the subway, and just a couple blocks away from the Bund, People's Square, and a ton of malls. best of all its cheap, i paid $20 a night for a single bed room with shower toilet sink tv table etc. i stayed there for a month though, so maybe they gave me a discount, but try to bargain or work out a deal, negotiating is a must in China. but you probably already knew that

[xcoldricex]

there's a nice place right next to xintiandi, name escapes me but it was about $20 or less a night. a lot closer to the club area part of town.

[xcoldricex]

oh you can check hotels on elong.net or ctrip.com

if you go real cheap though and don't look into the place, you might get placed in a ktv hotel hybrid (karaoke) ... which is basically a brothel.... been there done that haha.

[homme.homme]

It's already been said but I would definately reccomend flying rather then catching the train. The cleanliness isn't really an issue as I'm sure you will come across much worse in the country but the price of train vs. plane is so similar it isnt worth the hassle of getting a ticket and fighting the crowd of people trying to get on the damn thing. Also you wont be wasting so much time, which I think is one of the worst parts of traveling, as flying is obviously much faster.

Like everyone else said, accomodation can be found on the cheap - I found accom cheaper in Shanghai then Beijing and much better for the same price.

[aan den rijn]

I stayed at a place on Jiangxi Zhong Lu just north of Beijing Lu a block from the Bund. The name escapes me, but a 6 people dorm including a lockable closet and en suite bathroom is only $5 a night. It's pretty clean too. Neighborhood's a tad sketchy at night but nothing too terrible compared to the rest of China, to be honest.

[sunkenshoes]

I'm in pretty much the same situation as the topicstarter. Is there some place in Bejing where you can get Japanese cd's (I don't mean J-Pop, but those Japanese exclusive versions of Western music albums) or Japanese mags (Smart, NoNo, etc.)?

[ruzz]

i have 3 days and 2 nights in beijing soon and i'd like to see the usual tourist spots, at least, forbidden city + great wall. can i see these in 2 days and can anyone recommend a good tour company as googling just brings up a million diff tours.

[bohzak]

I'll be heading down to Beijing in a couple of days, does anyone know any shops selling denim there? Any information on shops that stock Japanese denim brands, or stuff like APC and Uniqlo or even Cheap Monday would all be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Shuu]

I don't think they actually sell any of these in Beijing (Need to search for these). Stuff like Levi's, Wrangler are easier to obtain. However, try your luck at this huge shopping mall called Shin-Kong Place, you can get there by underground tube, at the station called DaWang Road (Da Wang Lu, which is an underground station sitting on the tube line no.1). The shopping mall has mostly designer stuff there, but I can't remember if they have APC. Definitely no Uniqlo.

If you prefer original factory stuff that sells at like say, 30% of the retail price (oh yes, 30% for example, uniqlo selvedge denim cost 60 dollars in shop, you can get it for 20 or so there.) you got to go to this market by the Beijing Zoo. However there are a good amount of replica stuff mixed in with original factory goods and if you dont speak Chinese, I don't think it's a good idea to be going there on your own. Besides that market is usually for wholesale anyways. You'd be ignored if you wish to buy like only 1 pair of jean. But with that price they selling the jeans at (on average, 20-30 dollars per pair of any brand jean, buying 2 or 3 pairs at the same time is not a problem at all.)

Hope the info helps.

[bohzak]

I do speak some Chinese plus I'll be with a few others who speak Chinese as well so we should be fine. So thanks man, I'll try to check out those places in my week there.

[xcoldricex]

not beijing but there's some folks in shanghai releasing some ok homegrown denim. even did some selvedge... can't remember the name of the place. something with mom in it and a mummy logo.

[Landy]

when i was in HK, i went into a denim store in causeway bay called PUR. they carried japanese denim like steam, lea, and u.e.s. the store owner said his was one of only two authorized retailers for one of the brands and the other store was in beijing. so there is a japanese denim retailer in beijing somewhere... i'll look into it.