We won!

Yesssssssssssssssssssss!
First (and perhaps the only) Gold Medal for Indonesia in Badminton Men's doubles!
And to add to the excitement, they won it in the Independence Day of Indonesia!!!
That will for sure make the headline of tomorrow newspapers!!!!

Congratulation to Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan!
You guys rock!!!!

PS: It definitely kills China's dream to win all gold medals in Badminton! Yay!!!

Finally!

So it's officially started!

The fireworks and the lighting of the Olympic torch was incredible! But then again, the Chinese did invent the fireworks and they would like to make sure we know it.

We celebrated the evening in a bar next door. I would like to post a short clip to show the atmosphere and enthusiasm but haven't managed to edit it so far. So it has to come later!

Meanwhile, we are now off to our one week vacation. This time: Maldives!

Photos and many other beautiful photos from the ceremony can be seen in The Boston Globe.

D-2

In two days the most awaited sport event of the year will be happening in Beijing.

The event will be taken place mostly in Beijing, which is around 1300km from Shanghai or about 2 hrs with plane or 9 hrs driving but you won't believe all the security measures they have implemented for this event here in Shanghai.

1. No liquid allowed for air travel has been implemented since min. 3 months ago (see this post)
2. X-ray machines and dogs check all luggage going in and out of China
3. The government has imported millions of "explosive residue detection kits" from US to swab all incoming and outgoing passengers in order to see if they have been recently in contact with explosive materials
4. All bags must pass security control in the subway stations
5. All shops and vending machines located in subway stations are closed for a month without government compensation to shop owners (imagine if they try to implement this in a capitalist country!)
6. The government removes the business license of many small Chinese manufactures if they don't meet certain environmental standard (resulting unfortunately major price increase in China)
7. The government enforced "no free plastic bag" regulation when shopping in any store in China, also in spirit to be more environmental friendly (in Germany is only applicable for shopping in supermarket, but not when you shop for clothes in the mall!)
8. Gasoline stations are only open before 9 am and after 7 pm at night because the government banned trucks traffic into the city during the day time (imagine the long queue every night!)
9. And last, yesterday my friend told me that the government will ground all Chinese airlines traveling any places on earth for a period of 5 hours before and after the opening ceremony! (Thank God I am flying on Saturday!!!)

Another blogger wrote, and I must agree to his words, "Almost all of the action is taking place in Beijing, hundreds of miles from here, but from the frantic security tightening around town, you’d think Osama Bin Laden was coming to officially open a new Mosque here in Shanghai."

I'll be glad when it's all over!!

Summer has arrived!

We went for a walk around the French Concession yesterday and soon realized that it was a wrong decision! Summer has arrived in Shanghai and temperature raised up to 38 degree on day time and around 35 degree at 8 pm last night. It will be like this for the next 3 months so you might want to reconsider your travel to Shanghai!!

We have a temperature measure in our apartment window and it records 40 degree at the moment. So definitely we will stay inside!! We are lucky that we have planned to travel to Germany this week where the temperature will be 10 degree lower! Yay!!!

News from Shanghai Daily here

Countdown Beijing - 100 days to go

I don't really follow the Beijing Olympic progress too much and so far I haven't sign up for any ticket either. I heard that it is not easy to get tickets as the government uses the same lucky draw system like the one used for World Cup in Germany in 2006. This simple means that you can register here to buy tickets to the games of your selection, but your registration will go through a lucky draw process and if your name comes out, then you can go ahead and purchase the ticket. Otherwise, you'll have to re-register again (if you opt to do so).

Despite of the developing situation of Tibet, the chinese government has made a lot of efforts to make the olympic a successful event.

1. If you go to Beijing, you will find a number of new buildings currently undergo final finishing stage. The new terminal 3 in Beijing airport, the Olympic bird nest stadium, the national aquatic building for swimming olympic, China National Grand Theater and CCTV Tower are among them.

2. Starting from 1st of May, the chinese government will ban smoking in public places in Beijing. Smoking are only allowed in designated area, the same regulation like currently implemented in Germany. The regulation is in line with the effort to make a smoke-free and healthy olympic. There is rumour that the new regulation will also be implemented in other major cities in China, such as Shanghai and Qingdao but the government has not yet released official statement about it.

3. New visa regulation is also currently in place. Make sure that you have give enough time ahead when you are applying chinese visa. Also prepare very well your travel documentations and supporting documents as the embassy has imposed a strict rule of selections. I have also heard that the price for chinese visa is increased to about 4 times the price before (at least like that in Indonesia) and that the embassy only grant tourist visa with maximum 1 month stay.

Some of my colleagues from the headquater have also difficulties to obtain chinese visa at the moment. One colleague is rejected for visa and another one receives only 3 days visa to China.
For foreigners who are currently residing in China, please make sure that you give enough time when you have to extend your work/residence permit. I have heard many stories that some people receives no extension of their residence permit and therefore has to leave the country. I suppose the process will become more difficult as it gets closer to the olympic games.

4. New travel safety regulation has been implemented since beginning of April. No liquid is allowed in carry on luggage and each passenger is limited to only 1 carry on. There is no tolerance given in the liquid regulation, it means simply no liquid allowed. It doesn't matter if you bring liquid in container smaller than 100 ml or that you purchase the liquid from a duty free item in another airport and the plastic bag is still sealed. My friend is just came back from Vienna where he purchased a bottle of Whisky in the Vienna airport duty free. Unfortunately he has to transfer in Beijing to catch the local flight to Shanghai and the officer in Beijing does not allow him to bring his Vienna-approved-and-sealed-duty-free-Whisky to Shanghai and he has to dispose it in Beijing airport! Seriously..no tolerance!

5. More and more blocked internet sites are now available for browsing in China. I have been able to browse wikipedia, youtube and flickr photos anytime I want to!

6. At last, currency. As many other Asian countries, China is also influenced by the weakening USD and strenghtening EURO. This of course will benefit the European tourists but definetely a set back for the American. You can monitor the official exchange rate development here. As you might already know, China practises a controlled foreign exchange market. The rate you find in Bank of China will be the same rate you'll find in any other banks or money changers.

Prices of foods have also increased significantly in the last quarter as China reported for the first time in history a CPI increase of 8.7% in February. This record high are triggered from various factors, eg. the strenghtening EURO, increase of fuel price in the world and the extreme climate change in south and central China in this winter. China Daily reports here.

Tibet development

We have been planning to go to Tibet in beginning of May but now we have to cancel due to the recent development in Tibet. We are quite disappointed as we now have to find another location to go. The time is already fixed, it will be on the labour day week.

Nevertheles, we are quite astonished with the local media publication about Tibet. The story about the Great Firewall of China is not an urban legend, it is true indeed. In fact, after living in China for almost a year (yes, that long already!), we are quite used to the firewall. Most of the time, sites like wikipedia, bbc, blogspot are closed in China. From time to time, the Government also closed Flickr and Youtube. It's just depending on the current events going on about China in the international world.

But it is quite surprising that the Shanghai Daily and China Daily have been following up closely about the development of Tibet crisis. Of course as Tibet is at the moment closed for foreigners, we can only rely on the official reports given by the government.

I have found some pictures released in SINA.com, a local news similar like CNN. More photos of current Tibet situation can be found here.













UPDATE 29.03.2008: China has recently opened to foreign newspapers to send their representatives to Tibet to do close cover-up of the current situation after the riot. Also China Daily annouces today that 15 foreign diplomats are scheduled to visit Tibet in short term.