Moved Office

Nsn moved this week, luckily not too far from the old place. Now I work in the building next to the old one with a newly build office. People there complain that it smells of paint and some even stayed home because they got sick of it. For some reason numb ME hasn't felt anything about any smell or bad air, hmmm. The reception is always very busy watching movies on the computer :)

The blue stairs in the new office are really hip! It's like being in a club. No need to go out next weekend, saturday night fever @ work!

I found some more nice pets by the road on my way to lunch. Bunnies were the size of my fist, probably just a few days old.

And then some classic chinglish sign again :D "No touch required"

Too much food

A lot of people here just take naps at work while working or then on a break. Good example here from my teaching center. Relaxing while waiting for next thing to start. Sometimes I've seen the same things in restaurants here while it is full of customers...

Last sunday after work I went to an exclusive Japanese Buffet restaurant where you could of course order as much as pleased for 288 yuan. The food was so awesome and I ended up eating for 2 hours about 2kg of meat of various kind. Hede, I'm SOOO taking you to this place when your coming (drinks were also included in the price!)

The air here is so much worse than last year, smoggy-foggy all the time and the sun isn't clear at all. It looks like this big orange in the sky, not shiny at all. Dunno if the picture is really clean but it's not even bright when watching it without sunglasses...

Bday and Palace Club Opening

Happy 29th birthday Yuki! And thanks for the awesome dinner, it's always as good :) The new apartment was also very cool!

Was almost impossible to catch a cab around 12 a'clock from Sanlitun and had to walk for a while. While walking there was a woman who fell with her scooter because of a taxi driving carelessly. A lot of foreigners came to scream to the driver what an ass he was. Driver looked terrified when 4 big blonde guys were screaming in chinese to him. The woman on the scooter seemed fine, just some headache and small bruises.

I had VIP tickets to a new club opening party in Beijing. It's located in one of the SOHO areas and called Palace Club. A pretty fancy but the champagne was late, bartenders were slow and refused to give my change back because they said that they already gave it back to some other guy, what?? Well it was only about 1 euro but hey, come on...

Music was really loud (as usually here) but not as bad as some other places. A lot of small rooms where you can hang around in if you got a few hundred euros extra to spend because you have to buy drinks for a lot of money if you want a room. Some live dance shows of different types were also at place, don't know if it was because of the opening....Not coming back here 4 sure.

Chinese Milk

For some reason people here think it's more convenient to have the milk in small bags. There are 200ml and 480ml. I don't agree with that!

You open the pack and the milk is here and there and you have to store the whole fridge full of them because one is out in no time! And if the bag falls the fridge is covered with milk (oh I've been there a few times..)

The taste is also kinda sweet and not as fresh as back home. All the milk here is pasteurized because most Asians lack the enzyme to process unpasteurized milk (like my dear brother as well).

Spaka Paroll

All the restaurants here in China have a morning, afternoon or evening "parole" which includes 1 guy yelling. People gather up in a few rows just standing there listening to the floor manager yapping about some insignificant thing (work harder, you messed this up, bla bla). Got a picture about yesterdays "Spaka Paroll" from the cab.

It's been so hot in Beijing these days (i'm not complaining), everyday sunshine and 30+ degrees so I had to get a beer with the food. It's awesome that a bottle of beer in the restaurant only costs 50 cents! And it's 0,5L! With these prices in Finland the amount of alcoholics would increase like gas catches fire.

Life is like an Ocean

Something weird just hit me yesterday while waiting for the elevator. I dunno why but I suddenly had this thought:

Life is like a big sea and all people have different kinds of boats in it. Some are sailing, some are using engines. Some people can afford nice and big yachts while others sit a rowing boat only equipped with oars. We buy the boat according to our financial assets and the way of lifestyle we choose but we all need to float somehow.

Sometimes there also occurs storms and bad weather which reflects our bad mood and other unpleasant stuff that might happen to us. But then again we sometimes have sunshine and life is smiling, on these days you may even catch some fish, set ashore on a beautiful beach or have great wind for sailing.

The sea is almost endless, there are so many adventures you can have and so many places you can go to. My current location is an island called China which I found by random on morning at 6.30 while it was snowing and storming on Eckerö Line to Estonia...

Maybe the air in Beijing has made me a little lightheaded :P

Buss-rush!

I found that it's faster for me to take a bus to work and its also cheaper. When using the public transport card here it's only 0,8 yuan which is less than 10 cent in Euros. Subway ticket is 2 yuan, so about half price.

BUT there are also a lot of other people using busses...When I took a buss in Finland each morning I could always sit, dream on if you wanna sit in a buss here! (Happened to me like 5 times out of a 100) Luckily I only have to travel 1 stop and it only takes about 10 minutes. Some pictures to understand the amount of people commuting with busses here each morning...

One reason there are so many people here is that this is a buss "hub". From here you can take a buss pretty much everywhere in the city. It's like our Kamppi back home but more crowded and messy :P

This morning there were some lost tourists trying to ask some local people how to get to the Forbidden City, I guess they didn't get a very clear answer so local Beijinger ME helped them to find their goal :)

Another HOT weekend

The sun has been frying Beijing the whole weekend. Its been over 30 degrees in the sun and 29 in the shadows. Going out means sweating a lot and if I don't turn on the AC at home it's more like a sauna (chinese sauna that is).

Happy Birthday to Hyan! And thanks for the great dinner :)

Went to Steak Factory for some great food since that is one of the only places in Beijing that serve big steaks for an affordable price. The place is in the center of Beijing just next to the Tiananmen square, traffic here is always busy busy busy at the biggest street of Beijing

Dragon Boat Festival

Last week there was the Dragon Ball Festival, I totally forgot about adding what was so special about it. It's a 3 day holiday n China and usually spent with family. People here eat 粽子 zongzi and as the dictionary put it:

"a pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves"

Below some picture of how it looks...Taste OK, nothing I would love to eat everyday...

I've seen people dress strange or just "different" here but today I think we have a winner! The price goes to Beijing's MOST stylish in her own way...Too bad I only had my phone with me on my way from the gym so can't really see it clearly. The stockings were with holes mixed with some kind of granny pants, 特别有意思！

给你们中国人（或者聪明的外国人）一个玩笑：

猪给牛打电话，猪问牛“你是谁？ ” 牛回答：“我KAO！！”

Random Chinglish Signs

While in Chengde I found some more classical "Chinglish" signs. Some more random than others....

This is how u KIDE the car!

This was random...

"Grass" has life, yes I totally agree! I love grass, don't kill it!

The Great Wall - Simatai 司马台

There are many spots you can go see the Great Wall 年China but Simatai is one of the "most preserved" spots. Little has been rebuild on it and the amount of tourists are minimal! The downside to Simatai Great Wall is that it's 2h drive outside downtown. But it happened to be on the way home from Chengde so really convenient this time.

By walking up the wall it would have taken over 2 hours or so. Was easier to pay a few euros and take the cable-cart up. Also save some time, besides it's been about 34 degrees all day so I've been sweating like a pig.

The view from the wall was amazing! A little foggy but otherwise fine, the wall is really really long!

Chengde Sightseeing 2

Nature can work out in weird ways, for example this "Bell-End" rock! I think I heard about it before but had no idea it was in China. Safety here wasn't very highly regarded, no fence and a straight fall down of a few hundred meters. But it was Sooooo funny! The Chinese people just seem to think it looks like a giant rock, I wonder if your imagination goes any further...

They also had a temple from 18th century much like the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. The temple had significant meaning in old times because many of the minority leaders met with the Chinese emperor right here. The round things are for spinning around to give you good luck and great fortune! I ought to be rich by no time.

Chengde Sightseeing

In ancient times Chengde was the emperors home in the summer because it was suppose to be cooler than Beijing. I think the emperor might have gotten a little disappointed after they build his palace because Chengde was sunny and hotter than Beijing!

The coolest scenic spots in Chegde was definitely the Tibetan replica of Lhasa's "Roof of Heaven"

For the people who has been in Beijing this picture might look familiar. The road and the lights looks just like Beijing's biggest road Changanjie (long safe road) which crosses Tiananmen. Chengde, copycats wanting to be like Beijing...

Chengde 承德

A few days off work means a few days out of Beijing! The air here has been really muggy, dusty and polluted the last few weeks so I decided to go to a nearby town called Chengde. Chengde is about 200km from Beijing and it takes about 2+h to drive there. A lot of fully loaded trucks on the road...Never know might fall of the ride from these.

The Hotel minibar was one of the strangest I've seen, they had gas-masks and flashlights,mitääää???

The view from the hotel was alright, there used to be a wide river but now it's become grassland, wonder why they build a dam in the middle of it?

Just next to the hotel they has a Barbecue Town and their mutton sticks and chicken wings were really great! All the barbecue vends are muslims so you can only get chicken and mutton here. While eating the wings I got some if the hot sauce in my eye, NOT COMFORTABLE!

Holland!!!

For all the ones who didn't watch the football match today it was Holland vs. Denmark. I was with some Dutch friends watching it and the night ended well with Holland 2-0! We were at our local "1st Floor" watching it. It was amazing how many people were dressed in orange like the Dutch team tonight! All bars were packed and it was hard to get a seat, luckily me and Maria have our "kantapaikka" at 1st Floor so they provided us with a big table and a lot of chairs :)

Our devote British fan wasn't that eager when the Dutch won :D

After the match went to get some pizzas from on of the best places in Sanlitun. It's called the "Nearby tree". Usually a pint is 5 kuai here which is about 60 cents. Pizzas go for about 6 euros.