Rolls Royce

I read this article about the extended wheelbase version of the RollsRoyce Phantom here (german only). Now that is crazy - especially the high security version with 4.5t - the 760i high security weights in about 2.5t (these are officiall information you can get from the BMW website).\par
The RR Phantom is much bigger than a 760i but I am not sure if I would like to drive in this car because it won't drive faster than 160km/h. This might still sound a lot but if you consider that these people buy the car because they are really subject to attacks then I would prefer to be able to get away fast...

forbidden city

I have been to the forbidden city this weekend. I spend a whole day there.
The place is very interesting - so many things have taken place there that my head is still turning. The city was always extended and then some parts burned down and were rebuild.
The emporer was always in danger. There are no trees (except in the park for the concubines) because someone might hide in there. The floor is made of 5m deep stones so nobody can dig a tunnel into the city. Very astonishing experience. I bought a little book about stories of the forbidden city to get some more information about this topic. Some impressions from my visit:

Merry Christmas

I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year. May the next year be full of challanges like this one was! I keep you posted. Planning on the 'Forbidden City' tomorrow...

driving home for Christmas ...

On thursday I needed 2,5 hours to get to work - saw many things that I would like to have taken pictures of but did not. This morning I got my camera ready and took some snapshots while driving 'Mini Cooper S' back and forth ...

smog in the morning - this is not fog - you can smell the dirt

always the same: hope the truck sees you ...

looks safe?

even worse ...
driving home together
waiting at the toll gate - automatic toll collect should be available next year - people stare at the Mini - don't feel comfortable ...
on the way to the city ...
traffic jam on the 4th ring road - there is no day without accident

hair cut

Maybe it is not worth mentioning but I finally got my first haircut in China :-). Why do I mention it anyways? Think it is a nice story.
There is a barber called 'schnittpunkt' near my appartement so it is easy to go there after work. The Chinese guys there speak pretty good english. After getting my head washed for 15 minutes (!) the barber cut my hair for 45 minutes. That is a long time when you consider that I have a rather simple cut. Maybe he just liked talking to me.
His friend is the owner of the shop and also from my hometown Hamburg. The guy who cut my hair is from Seoul, Korea but worked in Sydney, Australia for 12 years. He arrived in China one year ago and speaks Chinese, Korean, Englisch and also Japanese. After this one hour cut I spend 68 Yuan - around 5,50 Euro.

first snow in Beijing

I was pretty astonished this morning. The first snow has arrived. It was too warm so it melted as soon as it hit the floor. Wonder if we are going to have a white Christmas...

I wanted to publish some picutres from the olympic test event but it was not allowed to use the flash light of my camera so the pictures are pretty bad. There are pretty good pictures at http://www.gymnastics2007.org.cn/gr/en/. Also other information about the test events can be found here: http://www.goodluckbeijing.com.cn/en/

Olympics on friday

There is an olympic test tournament on friday night - 'Rythmic Gymnastics International Invitational Tournament'. I will be there with my coworkers. I wonder what this is going to be like ... pictures might be here around saturday.

Christmas in China

As you know there is no Christmas in China. After having a good party last night we went to the german embassy this noon to have a look at the Christmas charity event. We had to wait for about 30 minutes to get into the embassy because there were so many people.
A few coworkers joined us so we had some topics to talk about. In the embassy was a typical german 'Weihnachtsmark'. The money earned will be spend for some charity events in Beijing.
No Christmas feeling yet but we talked to some other guys form Mercedes Benz and they are starting a party on the 25th so you never know ...