Hard Rock Cafe Beijing 硬石餐厅

Before I flew to China, I friend of mine asked I could get him a Hard Rock Cafe Beijing shirt. I knew he collects these shirts so I agreed, he even provided me with the map to get to the place just so I won’t have an exuse to say no. This should be a piece of cake. From Wangfujing, I took the train to the Guomao 国贸train station and got off and started to look for the Landmark Towers 亮马河大厦 where Hard Rock Cafe was. I found a young policeman who wasn’t really much help as he was also new there. However, another pedestrian knew where Landmark Towers was and told me to walk north.

One thing I noticed here in China, is that people seem to know their directions, such as which way is north. From where I come from people don’t really care about that. So walk north I did, at least that is where the man pointed me to. Little did I know that I was in for a long walk. The street blocks in Beijing were huge, so a map is never a good guage of how far places are. Along the way, I would be passing by several subway stations which were not in my friend’s map! After two subway stations, and they were quite far apart, I gave up and took the bus to the Landmark Towers. I was lucky to get off at the correct stop, and I realized I should have done this much earlier.

The Hard Rock Cafe Beijing is also called the Dynasty of Rock here. As expected, it has the typical hard rock logo and a huge guitar in front. It wasn’t very crowded there though and I proceeded to the merchandise corner. As I was picking the shirt, I overheard a very familiar English accent. It turns out the manager of the restarant was Filipino. I was surprised since I didn’t expect to find any Filipinos out here. Filipinos don’t normally speak Chinese so I guess it was more tough for her. I guess they needed to bring in someone who speaks good English, since she would be speaking to foreigners most of the time.

The manager, Jhun, was actually quite pleasant to talk to and I wasn’t surprised they brought her in. I got my stuff and made my way back to the hostel. This time I knew there was a nearby subway station. I was in a hurry to catch the last train back to the hostel. I don’t want to spend money on a cab here. It was a very tiring day, since I kept moving from place to place. I don’t get to come here very often so you can’t blame me for making the most of the place.

Hard Rock Cafe is in between the Liangmaqiao Station 亮马桥 and Agricultural Exhibition Hall 农业展览馆 both on Line 10. Get ready for a bit of walking as it is quite some distance from the station exits.

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