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!