30 Days to the Olympics

I cannot believe there are only 30 more days to the Olympics. The air quality better improve drastically and quickly.

Countdown at 100 Days

The countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics is down to the last 100 days.

It is now time to climb Mt Everest with the torch, amazing.
There is still a lot of uncertainty around how the city will finally prepare for the games. We expect the odd/even license plate rule to limit private cars will go into effect sometime in July. Construction has not stopped yet, not sure when it will. The smoking ban in restaurants and bars was repealed before it even was implemented May 1st (smoking is too much a part of the CULTURE, hmm).

The Olympic Torch

The Olympic Flame will be lit in Olympia, Greece according to tradition on March 24, 2008. From March 24-29, the Torch Relay will travel across Greece, ending at the Panathinaiko Stadium, the site of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. After the handover ceremony in the stadium, the Olympic Flame will arrive in Beijing on March 31, 2008. In Beijing, a ceremony will be held for the arrival of the flame into China and Beijing 2008 Olympic torch relay will commence.

The cities along the route are:
Beijing; Almaty; Istanbul; St.Petersburg; London; Paris; San Francisco; Buenos Aires; Dar Es Salaam; Muscat; Islamabad; New Delhi; Bangkok; Kuala Lumpur; Jakarta; Canberra; Nagano; Seoul; Pyongyang; Ho Chi Minh City

The provinces and cities in China that will participate in the torch relay are:

• Hong Kong


• Macao


• Hainan Province (Sanya, Wuzhishan, Wanning, Haikou)


• Guangdong Province (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Huizhou, Shantou)


• Fujian Province (Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Xiamen, Longyan)


• Jiangxi Province (Ruijin, Jinggangshan, Nanchang)


• Zhejiang Province (Wenzhou, Ningbo, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jiaxing)


• Shanghai


• Jiangsu Province (Suzhou, Nantong, Taizhou, Yangzhou, Nanjing)


• An'hui Province (Hefei, Huainan, Wuhu, Jixi, Huangshan)


• Hubei Province (Wuhan, Yichang, Jingzhou)


• Hunan Province (Yueyang, Changsha, Shaoshan)


• Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Guilin, Nanning, Baise)


• Yunnan Province (Kunming, Lijiang, Xamgyi' nyilha)


• Guizhou Province (Guiyang, Kaili, Zunyi)


• Chongqing


• Sichuang Province (Guang'an, Mianyang, Guanghan, Leshan, Zigong, Yibin, Chengdu)


• Tibet Autonomous Region (Shannan Diqu, Lhasa)


• Qinghai Province (Golmud, Qinghai Hu, Xining)


• Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Urumqi, Kashi, Shihezi, Changji)


• Gansu Province (Dunhuang, Jiayuguan, Jiuquan, Tianshui, Lanzhou)


• Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (Zhongwei, Wuzhong, Yinchuan)


• Shaanxi Province (Yan'an, Yangling, Xianyang, Xi'an)


• Shanxi Province (Yuncheng, Pingyao, Taiyuan, Datong)


• Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (Hohhot, Ordos, Baotou, Chifeng)


• Heilongjiang Province (Qiqihar, Daqing, Harbin)


• Jilin Province (Songyuan, Changchun, Jilin, Yanji)


• Liaoning Province (Shenyang, Benxi, Liaoyang, Anshan, Dalian)


• Shandong Province (Yantai, Weihai, Qingdao, Rizhao, Linyi, Qufu, Tai'an, Jinan)


• Henan Province (Shangqiu, Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Anyang)


• Hebei Province (Shijiazhuang, Qinhuangdao, Tangshan)


• Tianjin


• Beijing

Red highlight used for the few cities we have been to in China. The country is slightly larger in geography than the US.

One of the highlights of this leg will be the attempt to bring the Olympic Flame to the highest peak in the world Mt. Qomolangma. During the arrival ceremony for the flame into China on March 31, 2008, one of the lanterns with the Olympic Flame will be kept aside. The torchbearer team will then attempt to take the Flame to the highest peak on a day in May that presents the best climatic conditions for the ascent. Torch assault point: 8,300m above sea level

The torch will not pass through Taiwan as China had hoped. See China Daily news article: Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay can not pass through Taipei

High Priestess is selected for Olympic Torch lighting: High Priestess for Lighting Ceremony decided

As reported in China Daily

150 Days and Counting

The start of the Beijing Olympics are only 150 days away. It is getting warmer in the city and there is still a lot of building and beautification projects going on.

It was a little more than a year ago we were celebrating the 500th day of the Olympic Countdown. See the entry from last years blog: 500 days-and counting

We often read "The Expat Life" column from the Wall Street Journal as the writer is an expat in Beijing and many of his columns resonate with us. This particular piece published February 28:
Clock Counts Down As Decision Weighs:Should I Stay or Go?

Two-Year Anniversary

Valentine's Day commemorates the two-year anniversary for me and my colleagues in Beijing working with our partner on a credit card business. It all began at a dinner the night we first landed in Beijing. We went to a restaurant called A Fun Ti. We celebrated last year our first anniversary. We won't be celebrating the second anniversary as the Chinese New Year is getting in the way.

200 Day Countdown

The official 2008 Beijing Olympic Countdown clock is now at 200 days. Time is flying by quickly.

The uniforms of Beijing Olympics' workers, technical staff and volunteers were unveiled last night to mark the 200-day countdown to the Games.

The uniforms have the key element of the lucky clouds and will be in three colors: red for Beijing Olympic Games Committee (BOCOG) staff, blue for the volunteers and gray for the technical staff.

Red signifies passion and action Blue as a refreshing color, is suitable for the large number of volunteers;
Gray represents calm, which is what the technical staff need the most.

An official stated "We hope the uniforms make everybody look healthy and passionate"

"Fool", Countdown at 250 Days

There are 250 days left until the Beijing Summer Olympics. The number 250 in Mandarin (er bai wu) means "fool or stupid". We learned this while negotiating prices at the markets. If a restaurant check is for 250 yuan, the restaurant always rounds down the price so as not to insult the customer (even a lao wai, if they want you to come back).

300 Days and Counting

Today marks the 300th day until the beginning of the Bejing Summer Olympics.

The One Year Anniversary Countdown

There are big celebrations throughout Beijing and other Olympic venue cities for the one year anniversary until the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The 2008 Olympics Landscape Sculpture was opened on August 5th. The main event was a big ceremony held in Tiananmen Square at 7pm.

There is an Olympics Landscape Sculpture Traveling Exhibition from Aug 5 to 11 at the China Millennium Monument at Yuyuantan Park in Beijing in honor of the one-year countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

As one of the activities organized by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), the exhibition displays over three hundred pieces and sets of landscape sculpture, as well as photos of the worldwide roving exhibition, which was launched on August 8, 2005.

http://en.beijing2008.cn/bocog/bocognews/headlines/n214120822.shtml

http://www.shraybronze.com/shray-olympics2008.html

The exhibits, made of bronze, iron, aluminium, stainless steel and other raw materials, were selected from 2,450 entries submitted by artists from 82 countries.

Until now they have been displayed in nearly twenty cities at home and abroad, such as Tianjin, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Macao, London, Los Angeles and Seoul.

Additional pictures can be found at:

http://community.webshots.com/album/560195278bxZiVG

Barcelona in Beijing

A group of us went to a friendly soccer match between FC Barcelona and Beijing Guo’an. There were about 30,000+ people at the smallish Fengtai Stadium. It took some time to get there as there are no good roads that connect the ring roads. So unfortunately we did not have as much time to tail gate with buckets of KFC chicken and Heineken as we would have liked.
Thierry Henry and Samuel Eto'o started for Barcelona and then Ronaldinho replaced Henry in the second half. Lionel Messi did not play as he was still recovering from the Boca Cup. FC won 3-0.






The crowd was very energetic. It was amazing how many Barca supporters there were from Beijing. Some of the local fans were not happy and occasionally booed.


The air was very thick with pollution, not sure what the Barcelona players thought of that. The game was somewhat of a dry run for next year's Beijing Olympics, with the countdown at one year on Wednesday. The security was in high force.
Beijing Olympics officials are very concerned about the image the city projects next year and have been campaigning to get people to curtail bad habits like spitting, jumping ahead in line and reckless driving. The only reckless thing I saw was the launching of plastic square shaped fans that made great Frisbees after each goal scored by Barcelona.

Funny article from China Daily:

Beijing police out in force to limit Barcelona abuse(Xinhua)Updated: 2007-08-04 11:35
In their latest effort to tackle crude behavior ahead of the Olympics, Beijing police say they will punish or even detain football fans who yell out the "F-Word" (the Chinese equivalent) at Sunday's friendly between Beijing Guo'an FC and Barcelona.
"Those who initiate swearing or goad the crowd into mass cursing at the game will be ejected from the stadium or even face detention and a 12-month ban from attending football matches," Liu Chunjiang, a spokesman with Beijing police's Fengtai District Branch told Xinhua on Friday.
Fengtai police, responsible for security at Sunday's game between Beijing Guo'an FC and Barcelona, will treat the international friendly expected to attract more than 30,000 fans as a "drill for next year's Olympics", Liu said.
"It is just way out of line to have 30,000 people shouting and swearing en masse," Liu said.
"There will be a police officer in each stand videoing the crowd during the match in order to collect evidence of fans' bad behavior, from cursing and fighting to throwing litter or running onto the field. We will keep records of all violations," he said.
"What we are trying to do is to give the right guidance in how to view a football match, not to impose anything on the spectator, " Liu said.
Beijing Fengtai Stadium, where the game will be held, is the home stadium of Guo'an FC and a notorious cussing venue for Beijingers who enjoy letting fly with tirades of abuse.
A seasoned curser surnamed Hao was detained for seven days in July for "violating the order of a public event". The man set up a website in March called "Beijing Curse Union", aimed at promoting a "curse culture" and goading Beijing football fans before each match to swear at the visiting team. He was banned from the stadium for 12 months.
Another five members of the "Union" were fined or given warnings. Sunday's game will be the first match after the banning of the "Union", said Liu, who refused to say how many police officers will be present.

Another Olympic Test

We actually heard some rumblings about this early last week but now it seems to have been picked up by western news services as well. Beijing used traffic control methods earlier this year for the African Conference but it was not to this scale and this long. I ened up taking the subway to work as a result. I am going to be glad to be back in the US while much of this is going on. Until we hear more about the plans I am not sure how this will impact us getting around the city.

Beijing to ban a million cars in clean air test

Thu, 05 Jul 2007, 11:52AM
BEIJING (AFP) - Beijing is planning to ban a million cars from the city's streets for two weeks next month as a test-run to ensure clean air at next year's Olympics, officials said here Wednesday.

"The plan has been drawn up and is ready to go," said Fan Yinlong, a city government spokesman, referring to a range of measures that will include the ban on one million cars in notoriously polluted Beijing from August 7-20.

That two-week period is crucial to Olympic planners, as it roughly coincides with the time that the Games will be held next year, from August 8-24.

Beijing will also host 11 Olympic test events during the fortnight, including cycling road races, wrestling, hockey and beach volleyball.

Beijing has spent around 15 billion dollars on a massive pollution clean-up in the run-up to the Olympics, according to city officials, but air quality remains a key concern.

Despite assurances from the Chinese government, International Olympic Committee leaders have expressed deep concern about the problem and demanded "contingency measures" to contain the pollution threat.

Beijing Olympic organising committee spokeswoman Zhu Jing also confirmed that the traffic ban was being prepared as part of the one-year countdown test program.
Zhu said the plan to remove one million of Beijing's three million cars was inspired by a similar campaign that proved effective during a China-Africa summit hosted by Beijing last year.

"Air quality was better, and traffic congestion improved," she said.

Zhu said the measures would be officially announced once they are approved by the city's rubber-stamp People's Congress on July 24.

Happy 4th of July and 400 Days to Go

It is Independence Day in the US and just another normal day in China. SL brought in an American-made US flag. We just had to hang it and take a picture.

We did have a nice hamburger at Friday's during their "I Love NY promotion". Not quite a picnic on the 4th of July, but a good substitute.

We also stopped at DQ for a Blizzard (wanted to expose our Chinese co-workers to some more American "culture"). We talked about all the different kinds of candies and cookies you could get mixed into the ice cream. Good idea but JLo went with the Green Tea flavor (mixed in "green" powder).

It has also been 50 days since I reported on "the Countdown". The Beijing Olympic countdown clock is now at 400 days. Another counter we are keeping from the local paper is the number of week (57 more weeks). So what has happened over the last 50 days?.................... There are so many things:

• We enjoyed the graduation of our last child, albeit in China (fabulous ceremony including fireworks...can you imagine that in China).


• Both of our current college students were able to visit us in Beijing. We really enjoyed sharing our temporary home with them.


• We visited Tibet which was a once in a life experience that we will never forget in our lifetime.


• BF, AF and MF were able to go back to the US to enjoy a wedding for BF's niece in Milwaukee.


• AF went on a great school trip to Guilin, PRC (BF and I hope to visit sometime while in China.


• We have become empty-nesters (this is a big change and is especially hard being in a foreign country, sorry BF).


• From a work perspective, there have been many changes to the organization back in the US.

Special Visitor with 450 Days in the Countdown

Our son arrived in Beijing on May 15th, which happens to coincide with 450 days on the official countdown clock. He is visiting us for the week before he heads home with BF for a family wedding in Milwaukee. He then begins a summer job with Chase which he is very excited about.

500 Days and Counting

On March 26th, there will only be 500 days until the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
http://en.beijing2008.cn/03/39/honoraryvisitors.shtml

There are some local events planned to commemorate the occasion like a 5K and 10K run, an 18K walk in Chaoyang Park in 5 loops which symbolizes the Olympic rings. You can also become a 2008 Honorary Official Website Visitor. Click on the link to become an Honorary Visitor (there are responsibilities with the honor, like catching spelling or grammar errors on the official website). http://en.beijing2008.cn/40/39/article214023940.shtml

One of the benefits of becoming a Visitor is also this nice certificate:It is China so you can buy a yellow commemorative badge whose front bears the characters of "500 days to go before the Games of the XXIX Olympiad" in both Chinese and English as well as the description of the countdown on March 27, 2007 and the Games' opening on August 8, 2008. On its reverse side the official emblem of the Olympics is shown. The badge's issue is limited to 10,000 and each piece has a serial number which collectors pay attention to.

The China National Philatelic Corporation will issue post cards decorated with the Beijing Olympic emblem and mascots on the occasion of the 500-day countdown to the opening of the 2008:

















This auspicious date also coincides with our countdown to returning to the U.S.