October rehearsals: tanks patrol these streets

It was difficult to miss the clusterfuck that was Beijing over this past weekend with many an establishment closed Friday/Saturday/Sunday and just about all traffic around Gongti and Chang An Jie re-routed. On sunday, the restrictions were even more stringent with the subway closing down and bus traffic interrupted for a number of hours. All in the name of rehearsals for the 60th anniversary of the PRC!

Yours truly and company were trying to get back home after a KTV’n Dine mission in the chaoyangmen area when the mess was at its worst! With a general lack of taxis, we opted to take the subway which had been reopened and hopped on line 2 thinking we’ll be able to transfer in jianguomen but it wasn’t meant to be 🙁
once we boarded the trains, a quick message informed us that the train would not be stopping at our intended destination and we had to scramble. We opted to get off at Chongwenmen then grab taxis but it was not an easy mission: we had to walk for about 40 mn to get away from barricades and blocks before finding one cab that was willing to drop us home.. aye chichuahua!!!

Here is what the streets looked like midway through the evening:

Basically, the city was under semi lockdown and all the rerouted traffic+rain made it a pain in the rear end to get just about anywhere! Our lovely taxi drivers are generally not the most pleasant in the world but if you take away their usual routes and give them rain all around, they get exponentially worst!

Word on the street is that these restrictions, especially around the gongti side (where all the floats are hidden), might extend all the way til october 1st so plan your commutes accordingly! and don’t be surprised if you wake up to tanks outside your window!