27.1.2009 von Ines.

After WD40 lubricant and higher temperatures did not change anything I am convinced that somebody had messed around with the bike lock making it not opening anymore. I quickly decided to forcefully open the lock, but I did not have the tools. Unfortunately it is currently Chinese New Year holiday which means: All shops are closed. So also the nice hardware stores. But after 4 days without my nice bike I found a small hardware store that was already open. I never had been to this store. I walked in and asked if he could help open my bike lock. He first offered me a tiny saw. I told him I need some thing bigger. So he brought this huge bolt cutter (or massive pincer) and it went through the bike lock like a knife goes through warm butter. I was happy but also shocked. I hope my Kryptonite locks are more resistant.

I love Beijing for making these things so easy. I did not need to buy any tool, the hardware store let me use his tools. And the shop owner was really helpful trying to assist me - and that being free of charge. This attitude makes living in Beijing easy.

Geschrieben in Cycling, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »

27.1.2009 von Ines.

During Chinese New Year celebration some of the public parks have special temple fairs. Beijing has 4 traditional parks outside the former city wall: The Temple of the Sun (Ritan) in the East, the Temple of the Moon (Yuetan) in the West, the Temple of the Earth (Ditan) in the North and the most famous one is the Temple of Heaven (Tiantan) in the South. The only one of these 4 with a temple fair is the Ditan Park. So we went there by bike. That was a good choice because there was a huge traffic jam getting to the park. This picture is at the traffic light just before the park. It needs to be mentioned that the car on the right side has a green light and the pedestrians currently have a red light and should not be on the street:

I find it interesting that the girl in the center of the following picture is carrying a stick with an inflatable pile of orange-brown shit. What a weird thing to buy at a temple fair. And what do you do with it?

On the way to the Ditan South gate the guards shouted that all the park entrance tickets have been sold out and we should all go to the East or North gates. At the East gate there was a huge line for the tickets so that we decided to rather have lunch outside the park and go in afterwards hoping it to be more empty.

We went to a hotpot restaurant and ordered “Old Beijing”style hotpot soup. When that arrived we were a bit confused to find little crabs and sea urchin as a seasoning in the soup. That is the last thing we imagined as Beijing is so far away from the ocean. It tasted a bit strange to have the thin lamb and beef meet cooked in the seafoody soup.

After lunch there were no people at the gate to buy tickets and even inside it seemed quite empty. It must have been crazy earlier.

People were really interested in buying cow hats as it is now the year of the cow.

But not only cow hats seem to be the new fashion. There were so many booths selling all kinds of new hats especially animal hats:

There were different kind of performances, like this traditional long sleeve dance from a minority group from South China (maybe Tibet):

In the center of the Ditan park is the traditional altar. Here you could wait in line to sing a karaoke song of your choice for everybody like this guy standing in front of the pink background:

And if you had the impression that you did not sing well or if you just want to ask for forgiveness for wearing a stupid hat or just to hope all will be well in this new year then you could buy some incense sticks and pray on top of the altar:

Chinese do not have much unemployment. They are creative in finding things that people can do. Like the guy on the left side in this following picture is holding a sign that says exit. I imagine it to be boring standing there the whole day…

Geschrieben in China, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »