8.8.2008 von Ines.

Wow!

My company followed the city guideline to give an extra day off: The day of the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympics!

So I did not have to go to office today. That was especially convinient because my mother who actually received her visa arrived in Beijing in the morning. I took the new airport express train to the airport after some issues of finding the place to purchase the train ticket and getting through two security check points. We took a taxi back. That was so incredible: There was not a single person at the airport taxi stand. Nevertheless we somehow managed to get onto the only taxi with broken air conditioning. But that was also okay as there were almost no cars on the street and we almost flew home in that little red sauna car.

We then went to the neighbourhood police hut with the official certificate that I actually live in the appartment to get the approval to have my mother registered at the bigger neighbourhood police station. Our friendly police officer was out (said to be at the police station) so we went there directly. Unfortunately it was around lunch time but the police officer actually did register my mom despite it being his lunch resting time.

I met my photographer friend who actually now is lending me his Canon 1D till Canon comes out with a hopefully great full frame camera at a reasonable price. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I feel like a real person again.

It was hard to find information on places where there would be big screens to watch the opening ceremony other than some of the typical bars.  My friend Fede went over to Ditan Park at about 2 pm with some friends and told us to come as Ditan Park had a space with 2 huge screens. We packed a bottle of wine, 2 bottles of beer a beer opener, two foldable chairs and a blanket. We were just leaving home to have some dinner on the way when Fede called and said we should come soon as it was getting crowded and he was not sure if they would close the entrance to the space with the screens. So we went there really hungry just to find out that except for the blanket and the camera we were not allowed to bring in the rest. But they said when we leave we can pick the things up again despite the fact that there was no marking on our bottles. We did manage to get the chairs in for my mother. I back out and got food from a small Chinese restaurant so that we do not collapse. Everybody was haning out on their blankets or newspaper waiting for the show to begin.

And wow what an Opening Ceremony! What a fabulous 3D play of lights, colors and traditional Chinese element. It was incredible. It was beautiful. It was amazing! London will have a hard time to produce anything nearly as impressive.

And it was a real experience to be in Ditan Park with mostly Chinese watching it on huge screens. The atmosphere was so great. Everybody was sitting on the ground so everybody had agreat view of both screens. There was no aggression or violence. There was a lot of positive energy. There was a lot of cheering. And that was for all athletes of all teh 204 nations who then marched into the Bird’s Nest Stadium. The crowd did not cheer so load for 2 presidents, but definitely cheered for the athletes. It was also perfect that there were no moskitos. But it was quite hot that night.

After the finish of the ceremony we were advised by the security crew that it might rain soon so we should all leave the park fast. We did that anyway as we were hungry. We went with friends to the nearby famous dim sum restaurant. We finished our delicious dinner at 2am. What a wonderful August 8th 2008!

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9.7.2008 von Ines.

A while ago there was suddenly smoke from a burning building not too far from where I was.

It was huge clouds, but I could not see which building it really came from as teh building was hidden behind the big white building. My colleagues called the emergency hotline. But it is different here than in other places: You hear no sirens nor any fire fighter brigade. The good thing was that it was a fire on a construction site and it did not last long. I hope that nobody got injured. The countryside people who come to the big cities to make some money for their families and get treated like nothing on the construction sites.

The other day I saw another fire. It was the front of a building on a construction site. I have seen that building and I was under the impression that they covered the front with a beautiful stone facade. But I do not think stone can burn so it p[robably was made out of some other material. At least here there were fire trucks standing around (they built a new fire station not too far away) trying to get the water hose to work. But everybody was very relaxed, because it was only the building burning and the construction workers were all safe.

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8.7.2008 von Ines.

The road construction work seems so random here in Beijing. You cycle on the same road as every day and suddenly they removed the top layers of the asphalt. Or on my way home from work suddenly there are 2 foot wide sections across the cycling path missing, or lets say they are like 2 foot long pit holes that are about 3 inch deep. I was so lucky that somehow I did see them just before I hit and that I do have a hand break on my commuter track bike. Two days later those huge pit holes are gone again as if they had never been there.

Or you ride the road you always take and suddenly there is this smooth dark new asphalt. Really amazing.

But I do not like coming home and finding a piece of paper in the entrance of the appartment building saying that starting from the next day there will be 26 days of no hot water like it happened already twice this year. I just wonder why that repair takes so much longer than redoing a huge section of a major street. Oh well at least currently we do have hot water.

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5.7.2008 von Ines.

How black an air pollution filter of my anti-pollution mask gets in only four weeks… Guess which one is the used filter:

If you want to get your own mask or new filters: click here!

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29.6.2008 von Ines.

For a visit to Tianjin I took the currently fastest train which takes 1 hour and 15 minutes. For the Olympics there will be the really fast train in operation which will take only 30 minutes for this route. At train stations in China you cannot just walk in and go to the platform. You need to wait in the waiting hall or at the entrance to the platform and only get admitted about 15 minutes before take-off and only with a valid ticket. It was quite crowded in Beijing so I do understand that it probably is safer this way.

I took my trick bike and met the crew from Tianjin TV who filmed me riding my trick bike in Tianjin for their program Right Here.

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28.6.2008 von Ines.

Have you ever seen a show of improvised theater? Have you ever heard of shows of improvised theater? It is really fun to watch. Especially the “theater sport” where two improv theater teams fight on stage. You as the audience giving them challenges. We had a very fun evening with the Beijing Improv Group who split into two teams. It was hard to chose the winning team as they were both fabulous. They had some accessories like this blue wig which matched my anti-pollution mask very well. But I might not use the wig to ride bike through the city…

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18.6.2008 von Ines.

Finally Beijing is stocking up with a system of bike rentals. The bikes come in 3 colors: Blue, red and yellow. They have advertisements in the wheels so that you easily recognize them. There are various bicycle rental stands all across the city and you can rent them per hour or per day or even for weeks. Most of the rental stations are conveniently located near subway stations or major bus stations or where many people are. It is a great idea, not only for visitors.

Also just to let you know: You can get a bicycle repaired in almost any place in the city. There are bike repair guys at many street corners. Well… not in the newly constructed fancy areas like Central Business District (CBD) or Financial Street (Jinrong Jie) but everywhere else.

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17.6.2008 von Ines.

What would you consider as “International” or “modern”? Most of the new buildings in the Financial District or the Central Business District are called “International”. I wonder what that means? I truly believe that China sees the importance of addressing environmental issues. But these new buildings want people to come by cars. They now have nice underground multi level car parking space. But if you come by bike, then you are kept of the grounds of the building by the guards and told to go really far away. So the only place for bikes is in the North across the street there is an old residential building left and there I can lock my bike to their fence. They do not really like that. But in modern life how would want to ride a bike anyway???

The other thing about the “modern” buildings is that they now use strong airconditioning. So in winter it is so hot that you have to open your small tiny window to not melt and in summer it is so cold that you again have to  open your small tiny window to not freeze to death. What a complete waste of energy. But that is considered “International”.

Another funny thing: Our office building is a non smoking building. That I agree is very modern and the right way to go. But is China ready for that yet? My impression is that about 80% of the male smoke and a growing number of females now too. So what happens: The people smoke anyway in a building which is not designed for it. each floor has pantry rooms that are completely enclosed without even the air conditioning and that is where people now smoke.  So even here it would have been better to design smokers rooms with either good ventilation or windows to the outside. And all these issues are not just in this one building.

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15.6.2008 von Ines.

The re-branded monthly Beijing city magazine “The Beijinger” (formerly “That’s Beijing”) held the yearly award ceremony for the best bar and clubs of Beijing. It was a fancy event in another newly opened place and we met quite some friends there as well as the hot club owners.

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14.6.2008 von Ines.

I was requested to perform at a “bicycle city resident bike ride activity” North of Beijing near the Badaling Great Wall in a small town called Yanqing. This event was a GREEN event to promote bike riding as good for health and to emphasize Green Olympics (environmentally friendly Beijing Olympic Games 2008). As the bike festival started early we had to get there already on Friday (the 13th - the day my boss told me that he leave) and stay at a farmer’s place.

There was a nice map of all the farmers places (note the English translation on the left side: “The view area flat surface indicates diagram”. Not sure what that means.)

Foreigners have to be registered at the local police station for every night they stay in China. So the local police man came to the farmer’s house to check our passport and visa. I really liked the posters on the door of our room as well as on the walls:

The ceremony for the green bike event was the next morning. There were some speeches, flatland BMX guys did a short show and then I did a trick bike performance on the wet ground. But at least there was no rain when I was performing. After my performance it started to drizzle again and the bike ride with about 400 riders from Beijing and Yanqing started. Here is a link to all the pictures.

The big wall for the ceremony had a nice picture of four cyclists. And all four look the same and are in the same position and wear identical clothes (well except the helmet color). And the words “Giant” on the pants are written in reverse. As well as the number which is on the handlebar which again is the same (and in reverse) for all cyclists. And the street looks so real.

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