WELCOME TO BEIJING!!!!

08:15
What a sexy soupy day to start this blog on. So, a few days ago the Australian athletic team announced that they weren’t going to appear in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games due to health reasons. Beijing is getting a lot of bad press about the quality of the air and is being pressured to do something about it to enable athletes to perform at peak performance.

The government claim to be on top of the situation. Here in Beijing, rumours are rampant - they’re going to shut down all industry 3 months prior to the games (hasn't happened), they’re going to take millions of vehicles off the roads for the duration of the games, they’re going to fire rockets into the pollution to disperse the clouds. As with the mysterious date of July 1st surrounding many ex-pat’s visa’s, it’s largely a case of waiting to see what happens when the clock clicks over 8:08pm, 08/08/08.

And while I agree with the Australians that the point of the games is winning medals, not appearing in the opening ceremony, I think they're being pansies if they think one night in Beijing is going to dash their Olympic medal hopes. The Chinese LIVE here, and manage to take home a larger and larger haul of medals each games. Even though Kevin is the poster boy of international polly’s in China due to his fluency in Mandarin, I cant help but feel that this move is somewhat political due to the Australian public’s (rightly justified) concerns regarding the oppression and human rights abuses in Tibet. And Xinjiang.

But back in the smog. Beijing does certainly have some shocking days, and this time of the year is notorious for it - along with the great sandstorms that blow off the Gobi. So, as western media is largely going to show the smoggy days here in the middle kingdom, and the Chinese are going to frantically try to convince the world otherwise, I figure the best way is to have a daily photo from Beijing posted here so you can see exactly what's going down.

So, take a deep breath or fresh air, and get ready for an adventure into Beijing’s atmosphere....

(Click on any photo to enlarge it)