I had a free day in between checking out the Ferragamo show and an event for the U.K. brand DAKS. I spend my time in Beijing just like H.K. – I go from neighborhood to neighborhood checking things out. One difference between H.K. is that taxis are cheap in Beijing. The only catch is that traffic can be terrible, and taxi drivers don’t know the city very well.
After sleeping late I grabbed lunch by myself at Peter’s Tex-Mex, the burrito spot in Jianguomen. Afterwards I walked up to Ritan Park and met up with some friends and checked out a sound installation by Brian Eno (who was present and gave a talk). Afterwards I bounced around Beijing checking out some areas that I had discovered in previous trips to the city. I ended up taking the subway out to a shopping area called Xin Jie Kou. It’s a several mile long strip of small shops selling DVDs, sneakers, musical instruments and trendy clothing – my type of place! If you follow it all the way down it spills into another shopping area called Xidan that has large malls filled with small shops. I just started my browsing when I got a call from my friend Coco Monkey. I met up with her back in Sanlitun, and then met up with Jerry Chan from That’s Beijing. After dinner we rolled over to a bar in Sanlitun and my friend Denise played bartender and made us all drinks.
