This is Beijing-Beijing English blog

Beijing reported the first high-temperature alarm of this year on Monday, said Beijing Meteorological Bureau.

The alarm, reported at 11:20 a.m., was an Orange Alarm, the second level of meteorological alarms, saying the highest temperature will reach 37 degrees Celsius Monday afternoon, according to the bureau.

“The sunshine has been strong, the air has been dry and the winds have been strong these days in Beijing. The weather of this kind is defined as dry hot wind,” said Guo Hu, head of the bureau.

The dry hot wind usually appears in north China in May and June, which harms crops, especially wheat, but does no harm to people, Guo said.

The temperature in Beijing had been two-to-three degrees Celsius higher than usual since May, Guo said.

The city might be cooler on late Monday as cold air may bring thunderstorms, Guo said.

The temperature might be lower on Tuesday but will likely remain 32 degrees Celsius, he said.

The northeast Tianjin Municipality also reported its highest temperature of this year on Monday afternoon, which reached 38.9 degrees Celsius and broke the record of the same period since 1951, said Zhao Gang, chief weather forecaster of Tianjin Meteorological Bureau.

It should be 31 degrees Celsius on Tuesday and might rain on Thursday and Friday, Zhao said.

They said it was unknown if abnormal temperatures are a result of global warming.

As the it is the summer season again, Beijing once again become a beautiful green city.

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This afternoon, i went to Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications to take a walk. It is very near from our company to get there.

Some photos of this university:

Daily commuting takes Beijingers 70 minutes on average, which is 16 minutes more than 20 years ago, according to an official survey released on Thursday.

The Beijing Statistics Bureau surveyed 1,500 local residents to determine the commuting time.

The survey showed that travel time has extended, either because people live further from their workplace or because traffic is heavier.

Beijing’s rush hour traffic is among the heaviest in the world’s biggest cities, as the number of people who commute by car has increased.

The city registered an average of 1,302 new drivers per day last year, according to the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, whose latest figures also showed there were 5.2 million drivers and 3.56 million vehicles on road in the city as of Feb. 14.

From last weekend, the weather become very warm. And today the hightest temperature get to 29.2 degrees centigrade, this is the highest record temperature at this season from 1950.

People become to wear less cloths; Lots of cars open the window  and some even begin to use the AC.

But according to the weather forecast, there will be cool air at night of 20th, and the temperature will come down to its normal as 15 to 17 degrees centigrade.

Eight pandas which moved to Bejing after an earthquake badly damaged the Wolong center last may will soon leave Beijing to reture home. Panda keepers from Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center have arrived in Beijing to take the bears home.

The eight pandas have been in Beijing for almost a year and have attracted a lot of attention. Some panda fans rushed to take photos with the bears after finding out they will soon leave the zoo. They will go back to the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Wolong on March the 22nd.

They are the first batch of pandas that were transferred from the quake-hit area to Beijing. The pandas’ keepers say their temporary home in the capital gave them an opportunity to recover from the trauma they suffered after the deadly earthquake.

Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square, the so-called world No. 1 square in size, seems to have fallen short of its reputation amid a luxurious construction wave across China.

At the ongoing annual parliamentary session, a lawmaker told reporters that some Chinese cities and counties have built very big squares to beat the Tian’anmen square hands down.

“Even some small townships have created squares 20,000 square meters bigger than the Tian’anmen square,” said Zhou Xiaoguang, board chairman of the Neoglory Group in eastern Zhejiang Province, without mentioning which counties he referred to.

After a thorough investigation into the situation, the lawmaker said that a number of medium and small cities and townships have become craze in constructing mammoth government buildings with fairyland-like artificial lakes and squares.

Some government funded universities have occupied large areas and built “gigantic gates 100 meters in width,” he said.

In China, there has been a long tradition of constructing oversized architects, such as mausoleums, palaces, dams and great walls, to show off the leaders’ merits.

“It’s high time to stop lavish construction in China, as some squares in local cities have become even larger than the Tian’anmen square in our capital,” Zhou said.

The Tian’anmen Square, known as the “heart of China”, with an area of 440,000 square meters, can hold one million people.

The square serves as a place for leaders to convene mass gatherings in special celebrations, like the marking of the anniversaries of the birth of the nation.

The square has also witnessed various demonstrations and gatherings over the past century.

Created in the 15th century, it was formerly a royal site of the Forbidden City. The government expanded it after the founding of the People’s Republic of China 60 years ago.

(From CRI)

The No.1 water bar at Qianmen began to service the customer. It is the first water bar at Qianmen which sell sofe drick like coke, etc.