Beijing Arcades

Next to Beijing University, near the West Gate, there’s a strip of restaurants and small kitschy stores. Taking an escalator underground, though, takes you to the Internet cafe and the arcade. The Internet cafe charges you not only by time, but by which area you sit at. Basically, some areas have better computers/chairs/peripheries, and others are just the standard set-up. Additionally, you can become a “member”, and then you get discounts on rates and area prices. I noticed most people in there playing League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients. I didn’t spend a lot of time in there because you need a government-issue ID, which in my case would be a passport, and I didn’t have it with me.

So, I went to the arcade instead. One yuan=one token, and most games are 4-6 tokens. So like 75 cents to a dollar. I’m a sucker for toys, so I played the different claw machine and those machines that require super-human timing to win a prize. I didn’t win. There was also some weird fishing game that a bunch of 40+ year olds were playing like it was a slot machine or something. They’d just sit there smoking for hours, feeding the machine coins, just so they can catch digital fish. I didn’t get a picture of that since I feel weird taking pictures of people, but another time.

There were also a lot of Kinect games, but I didn’t feel like making an ass out of myself in public in a foreign country so soon after arrival, so I was just content to watch the natives do it. Anyway, after the break are some pictures from that magical place where China goes to escape responsibilities.