Xizhimen District In Beijing

Posted on by

The office buildings in the Xizhimen area of Beijing are a fairly notable landmark.

Xizhimen
photo by denn

Accordint to Wikipedia’s Xizhimen entry:

formerly a gate in the Beijing city wall and is now the name of a transportation node in Beijing. The gate formerly was the entrance of drinking water for the Emperor, coming from the Jade Spring Hills to the west of Beijing. The gate itself was demolished in 1969.

The 2nd Ring Road currently links with Xizhimen Outer Street, which has recently been transformed into a city express road, linking the western 2nd Ring Road via Beijing Zoo to the 3rd Ring Road. A triple-arched highrise building is a noticeable landmark at the intersection.

It’s also has two underground stations (one for line2 and one for line 13) that are close together, but not actually connected.

Also of note in the photo are the ubiquitous Beijing taxis, which every visitor to Beijing is probably familiar with.

Birds Nest Olympic Stadium

Posted on by

The Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing is one of the most photographed structures in the world. I’m sure I’ll come across many more photos of the stadium in the coming months, leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

IMG_5883  IMG_5879

Birds Nest  IMG_5881
photos by céd

In terms of capturing the stadium itself, these photos aren’t that great, especially when compared to many others that I’ve seen. You can’t see the whole stadium. The fence is in the way. You can’t see much of the sky, but it seems to be smoggy.

But despite that, these photos really work.

I really like the way that céd has captured people and vehicles in the foreground. That adds a lot of interest to the picture. I especially like the photo with the soldier and the one with the bulldozer.

These photos definitely work well as a set. Each picture works well by itself, but together, they add something to the whole.

Beijing Olympic Relay Torch

Posted on by

leah.jones posted several photos of the Olympic Relay Torch:

S1050497  Top of torth

Amazing photos by someone who actually got to hold an Olympic Relay Torch. It doesn’t look particularly Chinese to me, but it does look really cool. All I can say is that it looks amazing and I’m jealous!

It’s hard to believe that these torches have been the centre of so much attention. It’s a real shame that there’s been so much negativity around the Olympic Relay – this should have been a really joyous event.

Beijing Supermarket Awesomeness

Posted on by

This is fantastic. A supermarket with lanes painted down the aisles! This supermarket is obviously getting into the Olympic spirit. I’m sure we’ll see all sort of craziness in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics.

supermarket awesomeness
photo by Denn

The posters of athlete jumping hurdles, hanging from the ceiling, really make this picture.

On a side note, that aisle is really wide. I’ve certainly seen supermarkets in China with such wide aisles, but it’s not the norm. More often than not, the aisles are pretty cramped. I wonder if they widened the aisles especially so they could add the lanes? I wouldn’t put it past them.

The 5.12 Earthquake In Sichuan

Posted on by

While this blog was in remission, the tragedy of the 5.12 earthquake in Sichuan occurred. I’d left China only weeks before and listened to the emerging news with horror.

As of 8 June 2008, the death toll stood at 69,134 people. 17,681 people were still missing and 374,061 were injured. The scale of the disaster is hard to take in. It’s hard to comprehend that so many people lost their lives, especially the cruel twist that so many children were amongst the dead.

Continue reading →

WordPress Plugin – LocalCurrency

Posted on by

NOTE: As of 21st October 2016, this plugin is no longer available. It was removed from the WordPress plugin repository at the request of Yahoo! as they no longer allow their exchange rate API to be used. Existing users should transition to a different solution as soon as they can, as there will be no further updates to the plugin.

Shows currency values to readers in their local currency (in brackets after the original value). For example: If the site’s currency is Chinese yuan and the post contains 10 yuan, a user from Australia will see 10 yuan (AUD$1.53), while a user from US will see 10 yuan (USD$1.39).

Why Use It?

I’ve seen many bloggers write something like: 10 yuan (about $1.50) – because many of their readers don’t know how much yuan (or whatever currency they are using) is worth.

LocalCurrency automatically does this for you and tells readers exactly how much it’s worth, in their own currency, wherever they are from.

Features

  • Determines the reader’s country via IP address, using IP2C
  • Obtains exchange rates from Yahoo! Finance
  • Uses ‘AJAX’ techniques so that converting currency values doesn’t delay page load times
  • Caches exchange rates locally to minimise calls to Yahoo! Finance
  • Only does something if there is a currency value in the post
  • Allows visitors to change their currency via a selection box
  • Gives site owner the ability to hide the original value if desired
  • Gives site owner the choice of using current or historic rates (ie at time of post)
  • Now works with mulitple source curriencies

Installation

  • Download the plugin file and unzip it.
  • Upload the localcurrency folder to the wp-content/plugins folder.
  • Activate the localcurrency plugin within WordPress.

Note: The plugin is large compared to most WordPress plugins, due the IP2C database used to recognise the reader’s country

Alternatively, you can install the plugin automatically through the WordPress Admin interface by going to Plugins -> Add New and searching for LocalCurrency.

Upgrade

Please update this plugin through the WordPress Admin interface.

Usage

Enter any currency values you want converted using the localcurrency shortcode. For example:

[localcurrency]$65[/localcurrency]

This can be done manually through the Visual view in the post editor, or using the LocalCurrency Quicktag in the Code view (select the number to be converted and click the quicktag).

For a currency range, use a hyphen between values (without spaces), eg:

[localcurrency]$65-$75[/localcurrency]

There is a site-wide Site Currency setting which is used as the ‘from’ currency. To override this and convert from a different currency for a specific value, specify the ‘from’ currency (using a valid currency code):

[localcurrency from="GBP"]£65[/localcurrency]

The plugin will work with more than one currency per page, but will be much slower.

Note: This plugin used to use the following format: $10. This will still work but it is recommended to use the shortcode format shown above. Please do not use both formats on the one page.

WARNING:

The plugin strips non numeric characters (such as $) from between the tags, before converting the value. However, some currency symbols may include numeric characters. For example, 10元 may be stored as 10&amp#20803;. The 20803 will remain after the non numeric characters are stripped and will be considered as part of the value to convert, resulting in an incorrect value.

If you experience this problem, please leave the currency sign outside the tags (ie: 元[localcurrency]10[/localcurrency]).

See LocalCurrency In Action

The following sentence should contain the amount in your local currency:

I spent 20 yuan on dinner last night, then 30 yuan on the taxi home.

If you want to change the currency, use the selection box at the bottom of the post. Note: if you are in China, you will not see anything.

Support

This plugin is officially not supported (due to my time constraints), but if you post on the WordPress.org forum for this plugin, I should be able to help.

Disclaimer

This plugin is released under the GPL licence.

I do not accept any responsibility for any damages or losses, direct or indirect, that may arise from using the plugin or these instructions. This software is provided as is, with absolutely no warranty. Please refer to the full version of the GPL license for more information.

Acknowledgements

This plugin makes use of some code from the CurreX plugin. Thanks to miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG.

It also uses IP2C and Yahoo! Finance.