In Beijing you can find countdowns for the start of the Olympics 2008 everywhere. Some of them only display the days, most of them are accurate to the second. The unit I am living in also has a countdown but they update i every day manually. Every morning they exchange the numbers (except of the weekend). Since a few days, this countdown is wrong.

Chinese New Year – Part II.

Beijing really gone crazy – unbelievable

If you haven’t been part of a Super Bowl party, you’re definitely missing out. Even if you don’t understand the game, it’s great. Men and women shouting at the TV screen with buffalo wing sauce covering their painted faces or bright colored football jerseys, beer spilling every time there’s a good or bad play. It really is a sight to see….

So anyways, it’s Super Bowl XLII, Super Bowl 42. And while writing this blog, the New York (my home state) Giants has just sealed the deal for the Super Bowl. February 3rd New England Patriots vs New York Giants. I’m just hoping there will be a bar here in Beijing that plays it.

I’m really looking forward to this game and even the commercials, another favorite part of Super Bowl. So lets drink some beers, eat some wings, and shout like mad men this February 3rd. LET’S GO GIANTSSSSS!!!!

It was not really chaos, altough it was a little bit more crowded than usual. The staff managed to stay calm and nice and I had some nice experience:

1) Funny experience
Two nice employees had some fun. They tried to explain me something in English but realized after a few minutes, that I asked the question in Chinese.

2) I learned the following new Chinese words
雾气 = wuqi = fog
大雾 = dawu = dense fog
没有登机口 没有时间 = Mei you dengjikou mei you shijian = No gate and no time.3) Experience
Next time, I know, where I can change my flight ticket at the airport.

4) Happy return to my apartment
When I returned to my apartment at 22.00, the electricity worked again (it had stopped working just before I wanted to leave in the morning)

“Ahead of the Olympics, China is trying to improve its citizens’ public manners and curb behavior that might offend foreigners. Beijing officials are also trying to improve the English of some ads. A better translation of the sign above might be, “Find something new and be pleasantly surprised.””

In this case, someone contacted a Chinese company, they had a serious looking website, their address (fake) was in the World Trade Center in Beijing and the contact via skype was fast and professional. The price of the camera was 400 Euro instead of 1200.

After the money was transferred, the company said, they had some problems with Chinese customs, the buyer should transfer another 200 Euro because of tax. Here some standard excuses to get the additional 200 Euro:

• No – sorry, it was impossible to send any proof, that the camera was held back by Chinese customs or that it had been sent.
• Tracking number? No, also not possible, it was declared invalid by the Chinese customs.
• Meeting? No problem – but they apparently even did not ask for a phone number or an exact address for a meeting point

The 400 Euro are gone of course, the company did not exist, the address in the World Trade Center was fake of course, the website has another address in the meanwhile.

I don’t think, the buyer will see his 400 Euro again