Sunday Subway & Sanlitun

It was Sunday in Beijing and what was this lone expat to do but continue her quest to navigate the city. Today's self imposed challenge was to conquer the subway system, find a shop/cafe called The Bookworm in the foreign district Sanlitun and then get home again.

I live right on one of the new subway lines and opted for the station located at the Walmart up the street. I popped into Walmart to get a view of the place that Kate said had caused her to break down in tears, and upon seeing the throng of shoppers, I can easily see why. I walked right back out.

The subway is really cheap in a move to encourage people to stop driving - another of the city's improvement plans pre-Olympics. There are four lines currently, with several more in production including one going out to the airport. On this Sunday at 11am it was crowded and vaguely reminiscent of my crammed experiences in Tokyo (though fortunately, that was only for a couple stations). Upon reaching my destination, consulting several street maps, the position of the sun, and my sense of direction, I set out to find The Bookworm. And after several attempts going down various side streets, mission accomplished. It's a lending library of sorts for expats that doubles and triples as a restaurant and bar. The food was pricey and not very inspiring. After my break, I began walking to see what all the fuss was about the foreign district. It seemed pretty quiet on this Sunday afternoon given its raucous reputation.

Completely exhausted, I finally found another subway station but the line I wanted was closed at this stop, so I opted for another one and although it circled way out into northern Beijing, worked just fine. Unfortunately, upon exiting the station, I took a wrong turn and ended up on the second floor of the dreaded Walmart. Much like an Ikea, you are forced to wind down in a spiral before finally escaping to the street. One last little excursion to a basement grocery store in my apartment complex, and I was safely back in my 11th storey apartment looking out on two other immense apartment buildings - I think there are ten in all and each one is around 26 stories tall. It's kind of a mini-city. I'll try to get a photo at some point.