Pollution

I know I just talked about the pollution problem in Beijing but I just came across this graph. The reason why I entered a piece on smog was it just seemed so bad that day and had to write about it. Here is the proof of just how bad it was.

China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has a pollution rating scale that measures up to 500. A 25 rating is considered safe. A 200 is a bad day for Beijing.

Christmas Decorations

Beijing is in full swing to decorate the city for Christmas. I think it is kind of bizarre since Christmas is intended to be a christian holiday. All the office buildings have trees and lighted decorations up. Here is a scene from a nearby street for decorations:

Smog or Freezing Fog

The last couple have days have been a little rough on visibility and breathing. The smog or smoke as it is sometimes called is bad. Here is a picture from the apartment. You will recall another photo that I showed earlier on a clear day. What a difference.

What I like is the weather terminology that is used to describe the air pollution. Sometimes it is called fog, haze, or smoke. This is the first time I have seen it called Freezing Fog.

Happy Hour

We got to enjoy a happy hour near work with some new friends. The happy hour was staged at The German Beer Restaurant. They had some good draft beer, sausages, cold meats and even Jägermeister.

Good News

I came home late from focus groups last week and was welcomed with a surprise note on the door of the apartment from AF. It was late but I knocked on her bedroom door to see if she was still up. Fortunately she was and told me she was notified by an email from UCAS that she was accepted to University of Edinburgh for the college of English studies. This was one of her top picks besides St. Andrews and Durham. Here is a picture of AF during our visit to Scotland in October to Edinburgh. She sure has been in a good mood this week. I think she is somewhat relieved that one of her choice schools has accepted her. Now the waiting game continues until the end of March to receive other offers (she hopes). Then the real hard decision of where to go for the next four years.

Building Boom

I have mentioned previously that construction is going on around us everywhere. We see it outside our apartment and next to our work location.

What I find amazing is that new buildings are going up everywhere and not focused in one area. Some of the new buildings are amazing and daring in architecture.

Check out this video: http://videobeijing.com/2006/07/23/big-buildings-of-beijing/

Messiah's Challenge

Several of us went to Handell's Messiah which was performed in the Forbidden City Concert Hall. JPM is a title sponsor and we had very good seats.

A few of us first went to a Japanese restaurant near the Oriental Plaza. CB had been there several times as he lives across the way. I know very little about Japanese food and my Chinese is horrendous.

Usually getting cold water is not hard to do as we know the words for that but I guess we were not specific enough as it looked like AF got warm tap water with an ice cube. We tried again and got it right the second time. We had a similar experience with ordering sake. We got 3 bottles of Asahi beer. It took another 3-5 minutes to explain what we were looking for. We seemed to do ok with the food we order since it had pictures and we pointed.

We decided to take a short taxi ride to the concert hall in two taxis. The doorman had no idea where the concert hall was while we had a general idea. Thankfully we ran into a friend from the Investment Bank quite coincidentally and she gave both the taxi driver and doorman instructions. We took a taxi but they could not let us out on the busy street and we had to go up some side street and find our way. We called our friends to see where they were. BF just decided to follow people into the dark Forbidden City grounds through Zhongshan Park (see attached map) to the venue. What a trip.

The production was excellent. They did 2 parts instead of all 3 (thank goodness because it would have been very late). Little did we know our adventure was just beginning. We could not find or get a taxi to save our lives. It was very bitter cold out and the street blocks in China are huge. Around Tiananmen Square there are traffic barriers, etc and it appeared that taxis are not allowed to pick up anyone. We walked and walked not sure what to do and tried to find a side street which was not too desolate but we could get a taxi. We finally got a taxi home, an adventure we won't forget.