Beijing Boyce

With the end of Super Bar Street on the horizon, Tim’s (map) will ride off into the sunset by holding a “Burnin’ Down the Roadhouse” week. The place will be open for 24 hours all week, until 6 PM on Sunday when the power is expected to be cut, and feature food and drink specials, including “super” dogs for RMB15 and Tsingtao for RMB10. Tim’s will also screen The Big Lebowski on Wednesday at about 7 PM. And the place has a new pool table. Look for it to reappear in a new Tim’s, perhaps in the Sanlitun area…

I don’t know how many times I have walked past The Bookworm, looked at the mammoth building across from it, and spotted that Budweiser sign stuck to the facade on the seventh floor On Saturday night, ksquare and I decided to head up there, and we found a nice surprise – a rooftop garden complete with grass, running water, two pools, a small footbridge, a cozy bar, and dozens of cubby holes in which to sit.

The place is called Zhongyu Hanging Garden, just reopened for the summer, has space for upwards of 120 people, and requires a trip through the lobby of the building – at the northeast corner of where Sanlitun north and south meet – and a ride in the elevator.

Bottled Tsingtao and Corona are RMB12 and RMB20 respectively, and there is a decent range of whiskey, gin, vodka, and so on available at RMB20 per pour. The Budweiser that used to be on draft has since been replaced with Carlsberg. Admittedly, the place is still on the learning curve – we had to explain the concept of putting a slice of lime or lemon in the Coronas – but it does represent an unusual getaway in the heart of Sanlitun.

And while most of one side of the place is fronted by the facade of the building proper, it nevertheless offers decent views, including north past Sanlitun Village, south toward Guomao, and west where the new Soho is rising. The downside is the chain link fence, apparently required by law, that slightly obscures the view.

Note: The photos are not that good as I am still getting the hang of using my new camera at night (that’s The Bookworm in the third photo).

Wielding an arsenal of spray cans, paint tubes, and brushes, a crack group of graffiti artists invaded Sanlitun Village on Saturday afternoon and unleashed an explosion of color. Here are photos I took of a mural of a dozen records (given the subject, I’ll dedicate this post to vinyl lover DJ Chunky). I took the photos  around 6 PM, but when I went back after midnight, this and another three murals had been dismantled. Maybe management didn’t want people putting graffiti all over them…

Note: Here are nine photos of the other murals.