Going home for Christmas....

I am going home for Christmas - back to Stuttgart Germany with Lufthansa via Munich... which is in Bavaria like 'New Swanstein' (Schloss Neu Schwanstein) here shown in winter wonderland by the German Embassy in Beijing. Happy Holidays!

Beijing: Mysterious Wrapping

Can you guess what's behind the wrapping?


And now? What's your guess?


The solution of the enigma:

Oh Tannenbaum !!

Chinese love trees. They built houses and walls around trees instead of chopping them. And now, in winter, they give them a winter coat to protect them from the cold winds that come down from Mongolia... Actually, the winds can be very cold, ice cold and sharp like knifes.

I can't remember that I have seen tree wrapping in the last two winters. New is also wrapping robes around stems:



But I saw bush wrappings and hedge wrappings like this before:

Beijing Bicycles - part III

A lot of bicycles are so old and shabby that you must stare at them. Not even a scrap dealer in the West would have such unique antique bikes. They are gems. They still run. Amazing.



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Happy Birthday Beijing Notebook. Today is my blog's first anniversary. One year blogging, 110 posts.

Beijing Bicycles - part II

In Beijing, all bicycles are grey, or black or rusty brown.
Some are painted - I guess, to be easier found on the bike parking.
Lock your bike or take with you the seat to avoid loosing it.

Beijing: where is the air quality report?

I often check the air quality report. It is a kind of game for me.
Can I guess the today's level? Was it level 2 or worse?
It is difficult to tell. The sky might be perfectly blue, the sun shines and you do not think bad, but then you check the air quality report and you are surprised that it was an unhealthy day.

I appreciated the openness of the government to publish these data. However since some days... "Sorry, no record". (normally you should get the data with that link)

So why that? Is the air that bad?
Why am I assuming the worst? Because we experienced before: bad air quality on certain days result in no data. I wrote a blog post about that here after the car reduction test in August.

Let's have a cup of tea and wait. It does not look that bad these days.