The world's biggest ferris wheel in Beijing

"If tourism officials have their way, visitors to Beijing in 2009 will not only have to climb the Great Wall of China, but also the Great Wheel, says Ben Blanchard of Reuters.

At 208 metres tall, the Great Wheel will be the world's largest ferris wheel — higher and bigger than both the London Eye and the Singapore Flyer which opens in March next year.

Our eyes were drawn to these lines in the Reuters report:
The giant ferris wheel will have 48 air conditioned observation capsules, each of which can carry up to 40 passengers,...

Air-conditioned capsules? Without the a/c, we're not sure how many tourists would want to ride in the Wheel. The smog in Beijing literally takes your breath away.
...and on a good day even the Great Wall is expected to be visible in the mountains to Beijing's north.

On a bad day, we assume NOTHING will be visible." -- Shanghaiist

[via shanghaiist and yahoo]

5 sqm (50 sqft) luxury house

A white-collar worker, in Xiamen厦门, have worked for 8 years, earning much more than the average, however with his saving he only can afford 5 square-meter (50 square-foot) apartment. Thus, a young man, Lv Guohua吕国华, built his own 5 square-meter “luxury house豪宅”. After the construction was complete, this “the spokesman of Chinese housing slave中国房奴第一代言人” spent his first “golden week (week long Chinese National days)”.

“It is so pathetic to spend life in such 5 sqm”, some visitor says. But someone claims, “I feel so happy about him, because I’ve been working for so many year and I don’t even have such 5 sqm.”

It is a 2-story house of 3.2 m high. Mr. Lv could not stand straight at the 2nd floor because it’s only 1.3m high and Lv is 1.73m high. This little house situates in front of a big shopping mall and between 30-story residential towers in Canghai district of City Xiamen, Fujian Province.

[via south daily]