Back to Beijing

 

Airborne

Just got back to reality after enjoying a few hours sleep during my eleven hour long Virgin Atlantic flight back to London, in which I was fortunate enough to get four seats for myself, something my 185cm sore body really appreciates.
Such a task as sleeping airborne has never been the easiest thing for me, especially not when your fellow travelers are from China, where people are literally screaming in normal conversation, reaching unexplored numbers on the decibel scale. Even my earplugs can´t cope with that.

After reaching the finals in the MSI Beat it! Finals in which we lost to the Americans EG, me and Harley decided to stay five extra days, a prolongation of an already busy summer with around two-third of the time has being spent on the road, covering cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Jönköping, Paris, Shanghai, Seoul and now Beijing.

 

 

Saying goodbye

A few hours ago after saying goodbye to Harley , who was returning to Sweden through Amsterdam, I just realized that leaving Beijing felt sad. Adding the knowledge that Im leaving 30 degrees sunshine behind, just to land in London which is already attacked and defeated by the Autumn, is not encouraging either. Thank god the 10/11 season of Premier league started the other week, Glory Glory Man U.
The days we spent here together with some local friends has just been amazing and recapping it now, only halfway home, creates cheerful smiles on my face.

 

 

The Great wall and becoming a man

One nice memory was when we took off to the Great wall together with a friend at MSI.After meeting up with the guys in the lobby lobby we found out that the driver we had hired for the daytrip is one of those persons that emits positive energy to his sourrounding, with help from everlasting smiles and with a mindset that everything is just amazing.
There was an obvious language barrier with our new friend and driver but none of us will forget the driver´s life motto "Hen Hao", which in Chinese means "Very good".
The traffic was HenHao. Buying breakfast at 7-Eleven was HenHao. IKEA was HenHao. Understanding that his customers of the day played CS for living was HenHao. And so forth.

Harley, Mr HenHao and myself after the daytrip to Mutianyu Great wall

Climbing the Great Wall under the September sun is not a walk in the park. The wall can be very steep at some places and I totally understand the Chinese saying that you can´t claim yourself a real man if you haven´t reached four sections of the 6000km long Great Wall. Fortunately enough we managed to reach this within 30 minutes and we celebrated this new acquired status with a semi-cold beer.The TsingTao beer did still our thirst but we realized we were hungry so we went down to our driver who with a smile informed us that he knew a good restaurant where the food is "Hen HaoChi", very tasty.

Me posing on one section of the Great Wall which reaches more than 6000km.

 

 

Wednesday surprise

When arriving back to our hotel the very same day the next positive surprise knocked on our door, when StreeT, from the Fnatic crew, calling me up on Skype saying his flight got cancelled and he was stuck in Beijing with a couple of photomodels from his country, whom all shared the same destiny. Destiny it was and we all decided to meet up with Danijel and the girls for some Japanese bbq and clubbing. I think it´s fair to say we all had a splendid night out out sipping vodkadrinks on a rooftop club, let´s leave it there.

 

 

Shopping with confidence

Besides the sightseing and hanging out on bars and clubs we also did a lot(maybe too much) of shopping during our stay. The best place, in my opinion, to go is to the XiuShui market which is a paradise if you still have room in your bag. The prizes here can be very cheap, but you better watch out for the clerks there, who with great list can decieve you to believe that just their products are the best so therefore you should pay more than you actually should.

The ground rule here is to erase one zero from the initial prize. Do this with a confident smile with your front feet already on the way to the next shop, in 90% of the cases this tactic will be succesful.

How I managed to fit everything in one bag is yet a miracle.

 

 

Whats next?

It seems that the nearest future will be relative calm for me and the guys so I´d say you, the reader, can assume more content to be released on our Fnatic.com, something that I has promised for so long.
We start with this blog and I will use the time to work on some content when I´m not practising with the team or playing EPS matches, which by the way begins today at 8pm.
Finally big hugs to all new people(and old friends) I met during my 10 days in Beijing, I will miss you until next time!

Zai Jian


Patrik