day 281: [北京 (Beijing)] = 0km

Today’s post has 3 parts: tickets, the visa, and ROCK.

1) tickets:

Lilu and I had devised a brilliant plan: buy black market tickets!

“There are people selling them virtually everywhere,” friends had told us, “just go to the venues and look around!”

So we did - but when we got to the volleyball stadium in the morning and started nosing around for tickets…

…everybody just gave us these funny looks.

Feeling the humiliation, we decided to drop the idea.

2) the visa:

That’s when I got the call about my visa - it was done and I was expected to go and pick it up:

A 3-month extension was the best thing my sources could do for me at this point.

So I’m going to have to work with that for the next chapter of the way.

3) ROCK:

My good friend David called me out tonight to go see a metal show where his band Nihilist was playing:

Now what could be better than a night of loud heavy music with some good friends?

I had a great time.

There’s this one other band I particularly enjoyed seeing, they’re called Soma TNT.

Soma TNT have been around in Beijing for about 2 years now, they play metalcore, and I personally thought their 20-year old singer 豆豆 (doudou) was totally off the hook!

It went like this: we’re standing there waiting for the show to start. Then this tiny Chinese girl gets on the stage in the middle of all the metal dudes, and we kind of have to smile. An old foreigner in the crowd in front of us turns around, points at her and says: “I know what you think - but she’s pretty badass!”

And then the music starts, and 豆豆 starts kicking some serious ass (compilation of three bands):

Damn!

Soundtrack: 邓丽君 (deng  lijun) - “月亮代表我的心 (the moon portrays my heart)”

—total: 3555,1km