Guess Who Am I

I have seen the Eiffel Tower many times already but most often during the daytime and it certainly looks different during the night.

I just returned from my very quick trip to Paris, France yesterday afternoon and while the trip was very quick and very busy, I must say that Paris is a very nice city.

Weather has warmed up again and some of the snow has melted. They are are forecasting more snow tomorrow but let’s see if it will come.

In this picture you can see the traditional Christmas decorations at the local airport. And some fog.

I got used to seeing sun already high when waking up in China. In Finland that isn’t exactly true as sunrise will happen later. Winter is coming …

Winter is coming to Finland, this is how it looked this morning. You were able to see frost everywhere.

Time to review some of the movies I watched while flying back to Europe.

What happens in Vegas: Actually very funny but also a bit serious movie about a couple who gets married by accident in Vegas and suddenly also gets rich by accident. And naturally when the bright daylight comes, the couple actually doesn’t like each other so much …

Waiting in Beijing: Interesting movie, an American is waiting an Iraqi girlfriend in Beijing but falls in love with the Chinese girl who actually helps him to relocate his Iraqi girlfriend. Sounds confusing? It wasn’t that confusing but actually very interesting. And I must say that the ending didn’t follow my expectations at all, or at least mostly it didn’t as I was expecting.

People’s Republic of China turned 60 this week (1st of October) and the celebration included a parade. The following video presents it in compressed and in very nice way.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival. Bring the food and mooncakes, let the celebration start.

Sometimes it is a bit challenging to get online, especially when travelling. We have spare unlocked iPhones with us but we were missing some Chinese SIM cards. China Unicom was natural choice because they are having a 3G WCDMA network and also they will be iPhone operator so settings will be already in the phone.

We visited big China Unicom office where they were happy to sell a subscription but wanted a guarantee. Unfortunately the ATM outside of this office for some reason didn’t like our cards so we skipped the contract as it was lunch time anyway. After the lunch we visited the local HQ for China Unicom and learned that they are out of SIM cards. They told us to come back next day (Sunday).

The next morning they were still out of SIM cards but estimated that shipment would arrive on afternoon. In the afternoon they got two 3G SIM cards! And we got one of those.

And I think I figured out why it was a little bit difficult process, 3G isn’t yet launched (Yahoo news article about this) so no winder they were running out of SIM cards and also process was a bit unknown for them.

But, in the end, it works well and I am back online. 谢谢大姐。

We went to have Chinese foot massage yesterday evening. It is amazing how much they will learn about you through your feet. I learned that my lifestyle isn’t proper, I would need exercise for my shoulders and drink more water daily. That is for the start.

I was able to guess that, the difficult part would be to do something about it. It is always easier to find out what is wrong than fix it.

Beijing is still more or less the same as in May when I was here last time. One difference is the upcoming National Day, which has changed city a bit. In Chang’an Avenue there is a police patrol, a SWAT patrol, an army patrol or combination of those all in every corner. Our hotel has also increased their security level by having both metal detector and X-Ray machines for incoming visitors. This is nothing new, similar was already happening during the Olympics and lately I have got used to that in my recent trip in Jakarta.

Weather is hot, for me at least. Others don’t exactly share my opinion but shouldn’t it be that during your Summer vacation it is hot? So this certainly feels like good Summer vacation weather.