Monday, October 21, 2013

Woodward Beijing

Oh gosh my poor dear forgotten blog! 

Sorry... I knew this was bound to happen... What with new developments in my love life and all. 

Anyway, even though I'm writing this post in December, I shall backdate it to October since that's when the events in this post actually happened. 

Earlier this year, a few friends and I had planned to go to Beijing to the biggest indoor skatepark in Asia, built by Woodward. We waited months before we got a really good price for the air tickets- around 300sgd. 

Months turned into weeks, weeks turned into days. Before we knew it, we had landed in Beijing!


The last time I went to Beijing was in 2012. I got lucky that time- the air wasn't so dirty then.


The skatepark is located about an hour outside of the city, in the middle of some godforsaken town (大兴 Daxing) that is famous for its watermelons. 

There is nothing there except fields and fields of watermelons. 


Nonetheless, we weren't there for the watermelons so it didn't matter.


Most of the skatepark, like its namesake suggests, is made of wood. 


The whole hangar smells like a lovely mix between sawdust and sweat. 

Here's a little clip of what we did once we got there.



The hotel we stayed in is conveniently located fifty metres from the skatepark. 

Unfortunately, during our stay there, the only restaurant in the hotel was unable to serve us regular meals at a reasonable price. They always ran out of food by lunchtime since the hotel was filled with guests that weekend. 


Thank God for Chacha- who I met last year in Beijing. She took us out in cars to eat at restaurants as well as to get some groceries. Without her, we would have been doomed to eat the same flavour of instant noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.


Here's us at a Peking duck restaurant, being REALLY excited about the food that's arriving!


All skaters :)


On J's birthday, we managed to hitch a ride with a nice guy who lived in the city. He dropped us off at the nearest train station and we took the subway from there.


We went to Nanluoguxiang that night to take a walk on the street.


As usual, the place was brightly lit and crowded with people.


We got cosy in a little restaurant. Had the most delicious dinner ever.


Ended the night with a trolley ride all over the Beihai area.


There was like one clear and sunny day out of all the days we were there. Better than zero right?


J kept trying to land his birthday trick- 540 off the vert. 


I really had a great time skating and just laying around. Didn't take much photos during this trip actually. I think my photos totalled less than 300, which is amazing. 


It was so fun, I want to go back ASAP!