World's Biggest TV Screen

Some time ago Beijing had this great idea to build the worlds biggest screen when the Olympics were here in 2008. It's about 120 meter long and 10 meters wide. Lights up the night nicely :) The name of the place where the TV is is actually called "THE PLACE" You can send text messages to a certain number and they will be displayed on the screen now and then. All kinds of Love messages there...They also had a Love Cafe there :DStefan was driving around with my scooter under the screen and after a while some guard started running after him without being able to say a single word in english and just showed some hand marks not to drive there :P
A short clip from here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1l5y3owFCw

Scavengers of China

The recyling here is probably the best in the world. There are always some people checking your trash and taking the stuff that they can sell. Metal parts, paper, empty cans/bottles, cardboard etc etc. People make a living on selling others trash but how much do you get from it?

Made me a little sad to see this really old guy taking bike and metal scrap next to the shop I was fixing the scooter in. For 30 kgs of metal trash he was given 13 yuan...I helped him to load the cardboard to his cart so he could continue to the next place and sell it. He should be home chilling or just relaxing and not work himself to death at this age...

Fixing the scooter

2 weeks ago my scooter suddenly stopped working. It took some time to find a shop that can fix it but I finally did. On my lunch break I went to get it fixed and it turned out that the reason why the battery didn't work was because the cables were seriously dirty/rusty or whatever. The guy at the shop just cut off the crappy part and replaced it and BANG it worked fine again! While being at the repair shop I also changed the back brake into a hydraulic one because the old one was crap. I had enough of bike accidents because of bad breaks. This was the most expensive brake there was and the whole fixing thing cost me 200 yuan, not too bad.

I talked with the 2 guys fixing it, they were both 19 years old and came from Shang Xi province and lived in the shop they work at...Probably get about 100 Euros a month for the job their making or less. They told me that they can only go home once a year on the Chinese New year, rest of the time they work (7 days a week until late evenings).

See if you wanna complain about your job again.

Night Skyline View

A short clip of the view from my flat in the night...Quality ain't that good because it's dark but a nice view of Beijings East Side in the night.

Safety First

Found a really good place to cut my hair because my friend knows the main stylist at that place. Does it really good for 40 yuan which is about 5 euros :)

While I was waiting for my turn some people were taking pictures on the opposite roof, check out the guy sitting on the railing! Looks safe if you lose balance.. Watch out below!

Korean Food

I wonder why there are no Korean Restaurants in Finland. Maybe it has something to do with fire reglations? Well anyhow, we should get it because it's awesome. You order a bunch of meat and get all kinds of side dishes which you wrap into a salad leaf after cooking it. Taste awesome!!

And it's cool sitting on a low table by a warm grill in the winter :)

Subway Rush on tape

I took 2 clips with Henkka of the subway rush at rush hour time. Some of the older subway lines don't have AC so it gets nice and hot when it's over 40 degrees outside in the summer. It's like going into a smelling steamroom :D

I can only upload clips under 100mb to the blog so everything above that I have to put on Youtube if your wondering why I only sometimes add stuff here....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcULnsWIqVY

Married with style

Somebody got married with style and had rented a nice strech :)

There were also some birds outside, dunno why...

Some more Engrish

In Nan Luo Gu Xiang I found this sign outside the toilet, hilarious!

I get the gasmask part but Warning daop point and please fasten safetybelt was more of a WTF thing.

The Great Wall - Mutian Yu

Stefan (my little brother) came to Beijing so it was off to the Great Wall of China again! You CAN take cable carts up to the wall which makes it really easy and comfortable but we chose to walk up a few hundread of stairs :) Took about 25 minutes of so, I think it's the 5th time I do it already...In total I've been to the great wall 10 times already, a lot of walking!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7q0XCnJPuI
A clip to see how it actually looks like while listening to an annoying me

"Good damn Mongorians breaking down my shitty wall!"

Weather was really nice and but the Beijing "mist" is always there....

Small alley with food

Took a clip from a small alley with all kinds of random foods and stuff. The smell is, well very interesting :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeZBOTViXpI

Some art from 798

The art distric 798 which has gotten it's name from the factory number it used to have has new art all the time. This time the theme was "giants" and death I guess, well you can see for yourself.

A room full of skulls hanging upside down

The Terminator became a wine bottle holder

Ogres straight from Shreck and Warcraft :P

Beijing Traffic

Traffic keeps getting worse and worse. Henkka got a nice clip while we were sitting in a intersection. A buss drove into the intersection even though it knew it could not get to the other side because of so much cars. So it blocks everything, well check the clip and you will understand.

or go to youtube and watch it --->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcK151dFTV4


The ring roads here are also packed with cars, some pictures to elaborate on that.

Tian An Men - Taking Down The Flag

The weather has been awesome the last few days! Haven't seen this much blue sky for a long time. I just happened to pass the Tian An Men Square in the evening when the sun was setting. Was beautiful! Every day after the sun sets they take down the Chinese flag and seize all traffic in the biggest road, chang an jie (long safe street).



The soldier march from The Forbidden City to take down the flag. There are thousands of people watching this ceremony each day. The traffic is cut off for about 5-10 minutes and the queues are as long as the eye can see...I was told that these soldiers are the "Elite" in the army, all equally tall, well educated and has the best marks in everything.

Hot Pot

Hot Pot is something very typical for China. Each table has an own Pot where you put your meat and vegetables and cook it yourself. One side of the pot is with hot sauce the other without spice (you can choose how hot you want it). The bowl with the brown sauce is something you dip the meat and vegetables in before you eat it. It's made of sesam and taste gooooood! Just wait a few minutes and dig in!!

The food is really good, specially in the winter when it's freezing cold outside!!

In Learning We Trust

Again, some funny chinglish/engrish stuff. A picture saying "In Learning We Trust" and then on the left side this guy looks like he doesen't understand anything like "huh"

Also found this super fashonable girl wearing a Truck Furniture Makee (makee means cool in Finnish) lol lol!

Fire??

Last night the house opposite my building was smoking big time for a few hours. I never saw any flames but it sure was smoky. It's been raining for a few days but I don't think that has anything to do with the smoke.

Wishing Lanterns

Last month when I was in the Suburbs of Beijing there was an old man selling all kinds of things and i found that he had 2 wishing lanters for sale. I got them for about 3 euros and they turned out to acutally work really well.

Lanterns in China are lit on the Lantern Festival to wish you good luck, wealth, sucess etc. I didn't really buy them for wishing, just because it might be fun to send them up in the sky and see it they actually work.

The lantern is made out of very thin paper like fabric and has a wax candle tied to the lower part of it. It works exactly like a warm balloon, add fire/warm air and the ball will fly higer. The text says 许愿灯-Xuyuandeng which means wishing light. It also had an english "how to use" instruction but it was more hilarious than helping :P

And away they flew! I wonder how long time the candle kept burning and how long way they were able to fly. The night was pretty windy so it might have been a long way.

1949 - Bar/Club

Just discovered that there is a huge outdoor bar/club just next to the place I live. The design is really cool and it's mixed with a arts and sculptures. Prices are almost the same as Finland but it's worth going there for a beer just to check it out. The bar disk keeps changing colors and glows in the dark which looked pretty cool, the music wasn't loud and it's easy to talk here. If you have a date then this is one of the places to come to!