Over the last week at Nanluoguxiang, a team of diggers, brick movers, and electricians have been have been digging, moving brick, and laying down thick electric cables under the latest government project to beautify the hutong area. According to one of the workers, they will finish installing the cables within the week, which which will connect to the many grey electric generator stations installed earlier in the year. These cables and power generator systems will replace the tangled mess of electrical wires currently hanging above Nanluoguxiang via tall concrete poles. The sight of these tangled, suspended electrical wires are, unfortunately, a common sight around Beijing. No later than August 8, 2008, they will be “chai’d” from Nanluoguxiang!
So we’ve been working hard here at the shop and the wood’s in. Apparently its been done, and guess what! ? Our front door has been delivered! Yay! We’re going to have a new door, and some windows and its gonna be awesome. We’ve specially made our door 1.1 meters long to help some of you larger friends of the store to be able to come on in! The bigger the better. Oh ya and the door is 2.6 Meters high for all you Yao Ming’s in town. Here’s some pics of our German buying wood. He’s used to getting wood, not buying it.
Today was the first day of snow in Beijing this year! However, as nice as snow in the hutong can look, for our workers the below freezing temperature is more than just an inconvenience. Mortar on our newly laid bricks, paste and paint on the walls are taking much longer to set than planned. As temperatures have hovered between -2C and -10C since Monday, our workers have had to bring in reinforcements to battle the winter chill.
In the case of NLGX Construction Project 2008, ‘hutong charcoal’ has been brought in help dry (and set) the new furnishings, and baijiu is used warm up the body after an honest day’s work =). That’s true Beijing hutong style for ya!
So Ed, Michel and I are pretty much on track. We had a great time this week visiting suppliers and training on coffee and espresso machines. Should have seen my face when I had my first espresso. I had never in my life drank any type of coffee or caffeinated drink in my life. The closest thing was red bull or coke. I believe Michel said that I had a look of panic while he maintained his cool composure. Man we’re going to have some pretty awesome drinks. Anyways the construction team has completed major construction and looks like we’re on schedule. Things are looking great. We’ll be going to get some wood tomorrow to decorate our interior. Our friends are all very excited about what we will add to nanluoguxiang. Please be excited too! But please, refrain from naming your first born after the shop.
So its been a pretty crazy week here for all of us. This is pretty much the first week that all three of us have been back. And to our hopes fulfilled construction is doing great. Thanks to the Genius German we have been able to be on task and schedule. Its weird for some of us because we all have taken a pretty big jump. None of us have ever really done this type of construction before! Let alone a house on our own.
Well take a look at the pics, and we’ll update all of you whenever new things happen. Enjoy the site as it is always under construction. So at least something will always be new.
