A foggy sun fades away.
Darkness hides the road ahead.
No stars to guide me.
Cold air blankets the city
And fills an empty heart.
Frozen up, nowhere to go.
The year that was.
Beijing: two different views from the top
All the blabla on the pollution here. Most of the time, pollution is pretty bad. What do you expect, with 4 million vehicles on the road, most driven by Chinese who mostly never respect rules and for whom “civility” is not in their vocabulary. The result: bad traffic, cars blocking each other on intersections and the usual chaos in peak hours.
But when there is a wind, the dirt is blown away and we discover there is actually a city below.
See here some pics on different days, some from the Capital Club – 50th floor and a great view to the East.
The others from Park Hyatt, top floor restaurant, a view on Jianguomenwai, on the 66th floor.
All during November.
CCTV’s infamous hotel under repair
After months of debate it was decided to repair the infamous hotel building next to the iconic CCTV building.
The hotel burned like a torch (see my old posting) and we all thought the building was doomed. Engineers concluded the building could be saved as the core structure was still sound. While difficult at first to believe, the ongoing repair work does reveal the interior of the rooms relatively intact, see the pics. Some floors apparently burned out as the complete trove of new TV equipment was destroyed – delaying the operation of the CCTV tower.
Little is know about the real damage inside.
According to typical Chinese superstition, locals are likely to avoid the hotel once it reopens – “bad fengshui – bad luck”.
Wisdom from Kerala and Spanish sport
Drink beer and be good. Enjoy life and sports, the Spanish way.
Gilbert in Congo Brazzaville
Early December we disappeared to Congo (RC), to be more precise, Congo Brazzaville and not Congo Kinshasa (RDC). Many people even don’t know there are “two Congos”.
RC is much smaller – 342.000 km2 about 10 times Belgium) but with a population around 4 million only, half of them living in cities. One of the main languages is French, so I had to be translator to our Chinese delegation (that includes my sometimes better Half). Most of the translation Chinese/French was done by our good friend Martial – the son of our Beijing Rotarian Rigobert – both were there to welcome us.
We were on business, so most of the time was spent in meetings with government officials. We did have some time to drive around in the capital. See the pictures of the city with the River Congo (majestic view) – at the opposite side, Kinshasa, two capitals facing each other, rather unique in the world.
The capital is still very much behind, compared to a city like Beijing. What an enormous difference… Forget credit cards, star-rated hotels, international banks, modern office districts. Most of the cars are pretty old. Did not see a Mercedes or Porsche. The buses remind me of the old “mianbaoche” of Beijing. Traffic during the weekend is easy but can be a bit crowded on weekdays. People are on the other hand a bit more civilized in traffic than in Beijing (but when they have an accident…). The airport is a wreck and one of the most chaotic I’ve seen in my life. Fortunately the Chinese are building a new one (they have built many other facilities and infrastructure).
I like the many small and colorful little shops.
We stayed in the second best hotel of the city, “Résidence Marina”, where many of the air crews stay. The hotel is expensive, service rather lousy, towels are a rarity (if any at all). The food is on the other hand very good.
I went to one of the Rotary Clubs, along with Rtn. Rigobert – “Brazzaville Djoue-Doyen” where we were warmly welcomed and talked about our Beijing Club.
It’s a long trip from Beijing. We flew business class on Ethiopian Airlines, through New Delhi, Addis Ababa and Kinshasa. Something like a total of 25 hours door to door. But the service and food on Ethiopian was very good, they had excellent champagne, French red wine and the rest. Guaranteed me a good sleep.
In Kinshasa Airport (don’t ask me the name of that airport), I was so impatient to fly back to modern Beijing I asked the pilot to move over and I took off myself.
Just kidding. Maybe. See the pic(s). I also love those pics taken from the plane.