Impatient

Last night we had a housewarming party that went well. One guest who is involved in finding ideas/small companies and giving them funding to expand brought along a gift from one of the companies he has invested in, a simple but effective idea: a big teddy bear with a speaker inside. You download some music or audio files (i.e. learn english part 1) and the teddy plays it, so it might make learning english from cd more fun or interesting for children. Alternatively, you can just get it to play some soothing music and cuddle the teddy to sleep! Interesting idea, and cute with each hand/foot representing a different function (play, volume up etc).

As I write this, i am sitting on a bean bag, which was collected from a friend who recently went home; she had it custom made, and the more i use it, the more i marvel at its simplicity yet total comfort; much like the hammock my sister had in her room at home. Now, just have to hope i don't burst the bag!

Today we went back to our favorite park, but also checked out another part that has a swimming pool and a beach. Not much space on the sand amongst all the people, but a beach with nice clean sand none-the-less, and only a few pounds for the whole day! The joys of discovering new things in Beijing.

Next to our building, across a new road, that is not open yet, there is some bizarre construction going on, involving a big pit that they have been filling up with soil for the last 2 weeks and a small 1 story building (we think) next to it, which has very few walls (so far) and is also now being given a soil floor. In an ideal world it might turn into a lake of somekind with a tea house or restaurant next door, but we are not sure exactly, and eager to find out; hopefully in the next few weeks.

To the north of our complex is another massive new complex under construction (well the financial crisis led to a government stiumulus to support more building work, as it creates substantial employment), which is moving ahead at full steam. It might actually be 2 or 3 complexes in total, we are not sure right now, but do know that there are over 20 buildings of 25 storeys going up. Also found out from a friend that she is keen to buy one of the new apartments, and already slipped the sales agent a bribe of 1,000 pounds or so to try to get one, as they are in high demand it seems (maybe one reason is that from 2012 or so another subway will open right next door, saving the ten minute walk to the current subway line!). If there was a lull in construction during the Olympics to reduce dust, everything is at full-speed ahead now.

Indeed, though we were the first to move in on our floor (the 16th) it seems we will soon have some neighbours. Yesterday some more lighting was added to the footpaths through the park in the middle of our compound, and the grass was cut. The tennis court was finished ages ago, though I am not sure if we can use it (no net up yet), the adjacent gym/pool has not made much progress as is still an empty concrete whole though. I am also keen for that to get finished, along with a few shops to open up nearby, as there is not many at the moment. In the meantime, i'll continue to enjoy some glorious weather and the green park in the daytime, and almost romantic lighting in the evening.

Rain!

Isn't it always the way; as soon as the weekend arrives, the blue
skies disappear. None-the-less, last weekend Andrea and I got out to
visit several parks and green spaces as well as buying the last few
things for the apartment which is now looking very homely. On friday I
was thinking how almost every day I saw trees being watered, and then
on Monday it rained for perhaps the third time this year, suitably
flooding the streets that are not designed for dealing with rain
water. I suppose those who water the trees finally got a day off!

The big China business news recently has been the failure of the large
Aluminium company (ChinAlco) to buy a substantial part of an
Australian firm, Rio Tinto, who needs to reduce its debt. It would
have been a massive deal with political implications as well as
competition concerns (ChinAlco is one of Rio Tinto's major customers)
but Rio Tinto changed its mind, thinking it can get better value from
elsewhere. 2 months ago when Coke tried to buy a Chinese juice
company, the government blocked it. We can expect more of both
happening in the future -as Chinese companies with cash buy up
companies in debt whilst western companies desperate for growth put
yet more investment in China.

On Monday i got a 'black cab' which means an illegal one, due to a
lack of legal ones at the time... such cabs are fairly rare but useful
and my driver was a talkative fellow who used to be in the army. He
said the current government is somewhat corrupt as he went through a
red light; was upset at the British for destroying the old summer
palace back in 1860 when we were at war with the chinese (and took
hong kong); and was just generally an interesting guy.

After the rain came beautiful blue skies and warm, dry, weather that
has parched the earth. Will the weather last to the weekend? Will I
get to enjoy it, or be stuck in the office? find out next week!

Making life harder online

Tomorrow is a big date for China, but no-one in China will mention it to anyone, apart from foreign journalists writing page-upon-page on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the protests/massacre at TianAnMen Square. It started as some students commemorating the death of a liberal politician and then became a movement against corruption and for political change... at that point, enough was enough and the government stopped it after 6 weeks and with the death of several hundred people. What it means 20 years later is the government is trying to control and restrict communication -hence youtube, twitter and flickr is blocked, blogging softwares are blogged and more websites are blocked -even hotmail got blocked for a while. And it might not be unblocked until after October 1st, the 60th Anniversary of People's Republic of China.

Such self-censorship becomes ingrained eventually... i mean why cause trouble when your whole life depends on your visa! The subway stations have all had X-ray machines for baggage since pre-Olympics, but now you can see they have moved the barriers closer to make sure no-one can sneak though without putting their bags through the machine... the government can control things when it wants to, that is for sure! Meanwhile a few of my Hong Kong friends will be out in force at the annual protest there. The strange '1 country -2 systems' means Hong Kong is still somewhat independent and its people are especially independent!

Meanwhile I've moved into a new apartment which is looking nice -the beanbags i got off of a friend are especially comfortable. simple. but comfortable. it seems the recession has made people rethink things. 3 of my good friends have left in the space of a month... another will hopefully find a girl to keep him here! It is an extra 10 minute walk to the subway station, but i definitely need that exercise, and most of the walk is through a nice park betweek the complex, so no complaints.

yesterday a letter from my dad came. great. except it was sent on 16th april, which is ridiculous. a simpel small letter. would love to know why. it was sent by air mail and everything! other news is that we are not bottom of the table in the new 5-a-side season (yet); work was so intense i had to cancel a Thailand wedding trip, which was a shame, and i learnt the work for Swine Flu in Chinese, as it was/is a hot topic. Amusingly someone was identified with Swin Flue and they tracked him to having taken a subway, and got the video from inside the subway car and put it on national TV encouraging anyone in the video to go get a check-up!