What!!???

Yep, that's true. Today's February 2 in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. Apparently, you were supposed to have your hair cut just before Spring Festival (Feb 14 this year) and to keep it like that for the first month of the Chinese Spring Festival.

Obviously, it didn't ... Read more »

What a place for your Beijingologist to be blogging about this... right smack in the heart of Beijing airport, as in Terminal 3. Relaxing at the Starbucks has never been more relaxing — as in it's a Friday afternoon and the café itself (not the bit outside) still has enough ... Read more »

And we have a date (probably the "open before" date) for when the long-awaited Beijing-Shanghai services will start: 2012. If you thought this was a version of a direct flight between Beijing and Shanghai...

...you're right in the sense that there will be no transfers...

...and wrong if you ... Read more »

No longer just a problem of not being able to get away from a police check ("you drunk or not?")... that's right, the authorities have stepped up the "don't drink and drive" campaign big time. It used to be that if you knew the cop who stopped you ... Read more »

...or just about fixed.

If you use foursquare, it's now easier than ever if you are checking into city or intercity transit stations. All 147 Beijing Subway stations are now fully covered. You get to check in, by the way, by inputting the name of the station plus "Subway ... Read more »

Somehow you have got to love high-speed rail.

That's right: one loss is another's gain. The Beijing-Chengde Intercity Rail, originally planned to end up after about an hour or so in Chengde, will now be replaced by the Beijing-Shenyang Express Passenger Rail. That's good news: the former ... Read more »

The next station is Hebei. Please get ready for your arrival.

Yes indeed — we could be looking at Subway services for the bits and pieces of Hebei not far out from the Jing. We've our eyes set on three: Yanjiao and Sanhe, just miles east of the Line 6 ... Read more »

With the Chunyun or annual Spring Festival Travel Season just about over, the railway authorities have some a few new tracks to set... reservation-wise. Everyone knows that getting a train ticket early is the new order of the day. Your Beijingologist knows that too soon — being the bearer, right now ... Read more »

Ah, commercial imperialism with Chinese characteristics.

Get this: from the one-day summit about the Jing's CBD just a few days ago, those taking part wanted Beijing to build its own Empire State Building. But then again, they did not want New York with Chinese Characteristics. Nor were they interested ... Read more »

We wanted to call this the Lianghui period, but some of you out there may not be well-versed in that bit of Chinese. So we'll just call it the "congress weeks" as the action will be nowhere other than at the Great Hall of the People, where the National ... Read more »

Ah, what a way to end that big ole long Spring Festival. Last year, we had The Thing By The Big Pants go up in flames. This year, we've 28 injured and a fair bit of snow. Apparently, we blinked when we saw some clouds flirting around with the ... Read more »

Oh great. And this RIGHT in the midst of the Chunyun season...

Trains to and from northeast China were badly hit as of late. Northeast China got so cold that even the overhead power lines -- bang -- froze!

Hard hit: trains D8 and D22. Amazingly, they form the CRH series of ... Read more »

The evening paper has it on the front page: Subway Line 9 is going right underneath the east pool at Yuyuantan, or what some call the "8 - 1 Lake" (figure of 8 plus a huge 1 — just lying at an angle).

Line 9 is going underneath Yuyuantan to the tune ... Read more »

If you want a house in Beijing, make it a big one (if you've the ¥¥¥): the 2007 rule — "one house, one expat" is still true today, and has just been "re-implemented".

We don't know if this is legal or not, but if you're married to another expat ... Read more »

We've just seen a tunnel boring machine go into a Line 10 (Phase Two) works site, hence signalling that everything appears OK at Line 10. A little status report while we're here...

• Phase Two of Line 10 completes the loop that Phase One started just before the Games ... Read more »

There is a fair bit to hate about that three-line-cum-National-Railways-nightmare-(what-hub?) known as "Xizhimen". At times, you don't know where you're going.

Since we just got onto this topic...

...you probably don't know that they're digging two new tunnels which will, in future, enable direct interchanges ... Read more »

The summer of 2009 will be remembered as the year Beijing nearly sent itself into the oven. With AccuWeather reporting surreal temps even in the 50s Centigrade, it's a little surreal lately in our capital as temps rocked up to...

16°C. That is right. As your Beijingologist was ... Read more »

First things first: if you, by some feat of the Internets, aren't yet on foursquare... well, go and nab an account. Your Beijingologist is there and will be making his every move known. Is this the Twitter of the year 2010? You decide.

Back to the basics... or tea ... Read more »

It goes without saying that the Jing is in Festival Mode already. It's just before midnight as your Beijingologist posts this, but his neighborhood is already in War Zone Mode. Oh all those firecrackers...

...which leaves him to wish everyone a happy Spring Festival. Updates will get a tad ... Read more »

The next time you're ever in Yuyuantan, take a good look any sign of action underneath the water. If anything's acting weird in the east pool, relax — that's Subway Line 9!

What? Doing its thing underneath Yuyuantan?

Precisely.

The planners have dictated that the bit of Line ... Read more »

Expect local breakdowns near railway stations as the Jing enters the "critical period" today in intercity rail transport. The "big two" — Beijing Railway Station and the Beijing West Railway Station — will be home to the masses making their way out of the Chinese capital as February 13, 2010, which is ... Read more »

Spam, spam, spam, delicious spam, spam, spam, wonderful spam, spam, spam, spam — and with that — a la Chinese characteristics. The telco mandarins (at least China Mobile and China Unicom) for Beijing have declared that you may send up to a trillion short messages (or something like that) over Spring Festival ... Read more »

If you're looking to do a little... well, private banking, you'll have to brave the queues next week: just over a half of all banks will remain open during the week-long Spring Festival break.

A sampler from the Wanbao:

• ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank): Hours for open offices ... Read more »