It is another morning

As usual my driver (today Mr Lins father) pick me up at 8.30
at the apartment to drive me to the factory. A quite boring
30 min drive - every day the same.
The same traffic jam at the same places every day...
Some days You really look for a traffic accident, a VIP going
to the airport so the expressway is closed or something else to
brake the normal rutine.
But Mr Lins father is a careful driver so today it was as boring as always.

Best beefsteak in town

If You want to eat a really good beefsteak You should
go to Morel's Restaurant - voted the best beefsteak in town 2006.
Here You find many other good dishes and also Belgian beer.
If You don't like beef You should try Susan's salad or the Duck
breast - they are really good.

You will find Morel's at 1st FL No.5 Red Bid, Xin Zhong
Street Dongcheng Dist.,(Opp Worker’s Gym. North Gate) or at
1st FL East Block No. 27 Liangma Bridge Rd,

Enjoy Your meal - we did

Visit to Shenzhen

This week I have been back in Shenzhen, south China again
visiting one of our new suppliers together with some collegues.
It have been som ong but interesting days in this enormous
production site. Inside LongHua there are more than 260 000
people working and there are always a lot of people "on the move"
everywhere.

Stefan is explaining all about shipping while Helen is cleaning her mailbox

A shopping street in ShenZhen

Sleeping at work

have another meaning to us than it have to people here in Beijing.
If you "sleep at work" at home your boss will not be happy.
Here in Beijing for some people it is necessary to sleep at work.
Many people working in Beijing live very far away and can not go
home every day - they have to stay at work for the whole week...


















Close to our apartment there is a new, big restaurant built.
The building is soon finished and as soon as there was windows
in the rooms the workers moved in and put beds in some of the
rooms. Now they can work long time every day - not have to go home....

You see the same thing in many other places. Both at our hairdresser
and at our massage salon the people working there sleep in the shops.
They are too far away from home to be able to go home more than one
time a week.

And we are complaning about having to stay 8 hrs in the office.....

Just 566 days left

until the grand opening of the Olympic Games in

Beijing 2008.08.08 at 08. You might have guessed that

"8" is a lucky number in China.

For a long time they have started to "clean" the whole
Beijing, repainting all cultural buildings, repairing roads
and sidewalks - all to make a good impression.

They are even cleaning the rivers.... Just close to our

apartment the Liangma River are cleaned. All water
in the river have been pumped out...
The smell from the sediment was awfull the first weeks
until it had dried. Now the bottom is cleaned, there are
new islands and the banks are restored.

Still there is "the air" of Beijing to clean and that is a

great challange, almost impossible to make. But there
is small progresses goin on. To make more people
take the busses (there are very many lines in Beijing)
from January 1st the price for a busticket was changed
from 2 RMB to 0,40 RMB. Now the goverment hope that
people will leave the car at home and take the bus.

Big and growing

Beijing is a really big city and growing every day. It is
probably the greatest "construction site" in the world.
In central Beijing You can not look in any direction not
finding a building under construction. Every "free space"
is used to build gigantic business or shopping complex.

Today Beijing have just a few subway lines but before 2020
there will be 22 lines and stretch to 561 kilometers. This will
be the largest subway system in the world.
There will also be six underground expressway to ease the traffic
mainly inside the third and second ringroad.

Beijing subway - no scribble in stations or in train.
Much cleaner than the subway in Stockholm!

Some amazing facts about Beijing:

- 15 million people
- 3,9 million tourist per year
- 2,6 million cars
- 60 000 restaurangs!!!
- 16 800 square kilometers (half Belgium)
- 85 000 taxi cars
- 1 600 hutongs

International breakfast

Our daily breakfast is really international. Coffee from Sweden (Zoega!), spredable Lurpak and Havarti cheese from Denmark. Orange marmalade Schwartau from Germany and salami from Poland. The pineapple juice is from Australia and Papaya juice from Thailand. Milk from Inner Mongolia and the mustard is from USA.
The rest - bread, egg, ham and vegetables is local Chinese.
We live in a very international city!

Back in Beijing

and a new exsperience - hairdresser!

First hairmassage with shampoo and hairwash
After that a careful cut and styling followed by -
hairwash. So face-, back- and armmassage.
Than they massage "oil" into the hair and I had
to sit 30 min in a "hair-drier" with steam.
Finally hairwash again and dried again.
Took almost 2 hrs at the cost of 65 RMB - but since
"the family" have a VIP card and have payed a amount
in advance we got 50% "cut" and I payed 32:50 RMB...

Wang Meng at Fashion Hair (Xinzhong Jie street,
tfn 13911032370) can really be recommended. He is a
real artist with his sissors and a very nice guy.

Gott Nytt År

I Lund över Jul o Nyår. Regnigt, blåsigt, grått och tråkigt. Åter till Beijing på onsdag!