by Hakkesho on Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:46 pm
Bob: I have to say that I'm not a great fan of what they did in Houhai (the northern part of Beihai), too commercial and all these bars kind of all look alike but then, I might prejudiced because I was a "Beijinger" for 6-7 years and got to love the city a lot, even if it is not easy to cope every day with the astronomical number of cars, the pollution and the legendary "roughness" of the beijingren hahaha.
SPG: I guess the climate change (and the phenomenal pollution) in and around of Beijing has done its job... Beijing is still quite dusty of course, but it's one of the driest place I've ever been (not in the summer though), many people get skin problems, especially during winter time. As for the dust, the best is when the sandstorms coming from the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia hit Beijing! What you get is a lunar landscape, with a kind of brownish or orange color and sometimes you cannot see the buildings just 50 meters in front of you... Back in 2000-01, I saw a lot of people riding their bikes wearing swiming gogles to protect themselves from the dust, hahahah