Designers hope the local giants will leave their mountainside homes and come play ping pong with the locals.

In honor of the county’s favorite sport, Huainan, China (that’s in the east) is building a giant ping pong paddle hotel. It will be nearly 500 feet tall and be part of a giant Olympic Park.

Four buildings in the park are also under construction, namely an American football-shaped main stadium, a volleyball-shaped natatorium, a football-shaped gym stadium and a basketball-shaped stadium. The overall investment of the park is said to reach 1.8 billion yuan in three phases within five years.

Did I say Olympic Park? Yeah… don’t know what that’s all about. Nothing I could find notes Huainan as a possible Olympic city or anything.

[via China Daily]

With no gchat maybe I'll actually get some work done.

I knew something was up. I haven’t been able to use Google’s gmail gchat for weeks. And that’s only after my gmail account finally loads. I can’t remember the last time it loaded after my first click on the bookmark.

Google, it turns out, is accusing China of messing round with gmail.

According to the search giant, Chinese customers and advertisers have increasingly been complaining about their Gmail service in the past month. Attempts by users to send messages, mark messages as unread and use other services have generated problems for Gmail customers.

“Relating to Google there is no issue on our side. We have checked extensively. This is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail,” said a Google spokesman.

This, of course, is a result of the demonstrations here in February where several activists were arrested. China will do anything and everything it can do to make it harder to communicate online (and organize gatherings).

The best part about the accusation by Google is that it says China’s interference is “very, very sophisticated.” Now we’re talking the stuff of movies. Google says China’s hacking comes and goes, is “semi-industrial,” and makes it look like there’s really just a problem with Google itself.

It’s widely believed that China has hacked its way into various US agencies and companies. Google has already basically given up on the place. It’s rerouted google.cn traffic to its Hong Kong site and left the Mainland, setting up shop on the island.

Good thing I have my trusty VPN so I can still tweet and use that silly social networking site.

BBC FLASH NEWS:
Japan govt confirms radiation leak at Fukushima nuclear plants. Asian countries should take necessary precautions. If rain comes, remain indoors first 24hrs. Close doors & windows. Swab neck skin with betadine where thyroid area is, radiation hits thyroid first. Take extra precautions. Radiation may hit Phillipine  starting at 4pm today. Pls send to your friends.

My friend joked that it’s probably just a rumor. And apparently it is. I’ve confirmed that Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, is deleting similar posts from the micro-blogging site. My producer tells me this is mostly likely by government instruction, much like other censored material from that site.

In any case, there’s a strong wind from the north in Beijing today. And the weather forecast doesn’t have an ounce of rain falling here through Sunday. Maybe I’ll check the local supermarket for Betadine on the way home…

...at least for the month of March

The website eChinacities is reporting that Tibet has been closed off to foreigners. The travel ban will supposedly be lifted in April.

Chinese tourism agencies have stopped issuing the relevant documents needed for foreigners to enter Tibet. This temporary entry ban comes around the three-year anniversary of the 2008 March riots, which started in Lhasa and spread to other areas with high Tibetan populations.

I did a little google-ing and found (from the few websites that are not blocked here) that this does seem to be the case.

The State line, according to official news agency Xinhua, fails to mention the 2008 protests or that March 10 marks the 52nd anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

The temporary measures on restricting foreign tourists to Tibet were mainly due to the current cold winter weather, limited accommodation capacity and safety concerns, a high-ranking official said on Monday.

The plateau region is still in deep freeze in March and lots of religious activities will be held.

A quick check of the forecast for Tibet’s capital Lhasa finds it a balmy 54F with temperatures staying in the 50s into the weekend.

Beijing's CBD Skyline from the top of my new apartment building. Click to download 1280x800 wallpaper.

This is the view from the roof of my new apartment building. It’s the skyline of Beijing’s Central Business District. Guomao is that tall building. It has a pretty awesome bar on the top floor with expensive scotch. Guomao means International Trade so it’s basically Beijing’s World Trade Center complex.

The infamous CCTV building is the arched one. It was built to much acclaim in 2008 during the run-up to the Olympics. During New Years in 2009 some stray fireworks caught the adjacent building (a hotel) on fire. As luck would have it, both the burned building and the CCTV building are on the same foundation rendering the once heralded iconic building unsafe. It still stands empty today with the building next door still looking like the fire was put out yesterday.

Rumor has it Li Kai Shing, the richest guy in Hong Kong or something, has just purchased the lot. The trouble is the hotel needs to be totally repaired, along with the foundation, before the whole complex can be used. This is not only complicated, but expensive and slow.

The tall building on the left with red lights on top is Jianwai SOHO. SOHO is a Chinese development company run by one of the richest couples in the country. There are several SOHO developments around town. They are all really expensive and fancy.

Chaoyang Bei Lu runs through the foreground. Chaoyang is the name of the road (Lu). This is the north (Bei) fork. The red steel girder things there are 16 ton lifts constructing a new subway station for Line 6. Each station construction site takes up the center of the road disrupting traffic flow. I’ve heard the new Line 6 will open in 2011 or 2012. No one I’ve talked to knows for sure.