Centro in the Kerry Hotel Beijing

Located in the luxury Kerry Hotel in the foreign embassy area of the Chinese capital, Centro is right up there as one of Beijing's top night spots.

Centro's motto is "Beautiful People Serving Beautiful People" and this stylish bar on Level 1 of the hotel draws the city's celebrities for its award-winning cocktails and live jazz acts. Happy hour is between 5 and 8pm though Centro is open 24 hours a day.

Centro
No 1 Guanghua Road
Beijing
100020
China
Beijing
Tel: 86 10 6561 8833 ext. 42

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Modernista

Modernista Old Cafe and Tapas bar is quickly earning itself a reputation as on of Beijing's top night spots.

Modernista is an art deco themed live house with DJs, live acts including blues, funk, Dixieland and jazz plus film screenings and open mic comedy events. There have also been photography exhibitions and a mahjong evening.

Wash down your tapas with a fine selection of beer, whiskey and absinthe.

Modernista
Baochao Hutong 44
Dongcheng
Beijing
Tel: 0136 9142 5744

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Haze Nightclub Beijing

The fairly recent Haze is one of Beijing's top nightclubs. Haze is a trendy duplex: two floors, bar and cafe on top and basement dance floor below.

Haze specializes in techno, nu-disco and house with frequent visits by the world's top DJs plus its own in-house professionals.

Haze is located in the Guomao district of the Chinese capital on Guanghua Lu.

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St Joseph Seminary Church Macau

聖若瑟修院及聖堂

The baroque St Joseph Seminary Church in Macau was built by the Jesuits on Mato Mofino hill between 1746 and 1758.

After the Jesuits were expelled from Macau in the 18th century by order of the Marquis of Pombal back in Portugal, the building was taken over by the Lazarists (Congregation of the Mission).

The church is approached via a flight of granite steps leading to the central door under a "broken" arch.

The interior of the church is lavishly decorated with the dome reaching 19m.

The church a holy relic of a piece of bone from St. Francis Xavier, who was active as a Jesuit missionary in Goa, Macau and later Japan.

St Joseph Seminary Church
Rua do Seminario, Macau
Tel: 853 8399 6699

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Beijing Police

人民武装警察

The Beijing police force has a long history. The Beijing Police Academy was founded in 1901 on the Japanese police model and had Japanese trainers. Before then local, poorly trained police police were paid for out of the public coffers.

Nowadays Beijing's police force is under the control of the Ministry of Public Security.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) is China's national police force (with the exception of Hong Kong and Macau) and it operates Public Security Bureaus, akin to police stations in other countries but with many more powers throughout China.

Ministry of Public Security police wear blue uniforms and have been armed since 2006 with a locally made 9mm double-action revolver.

The People's Armed Police is another arm of China's police force (with the exception of Hong Kong and Macau) and is a paramilitary gendamarie, somewhat on the lines of Italy's Carabinieri, the Guardia Civil in Spain and the Guarda Nacional Republicana in Portugal.

PAP policemen wear olive green uniforms and are armed with pistols and carry a whistle (see photograph below).

Visitors interested in the history of Beijing's and China's police force should visit the Beijing Police Museum in the Foreign Legation Quarter.


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Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival 2013

哈尔滨国际冰雪节

The 29th Harbin International Ice & Snow Sculpture Festival opens in Heilongjiang Province with a spectacular opening con Saturday January 5th, 2013 and lasts for around one month.



The hundreds of ice sculptures at Sun Island, Zhaolin Park and "Ice and Snow World" are built from blocks of ice taken from the Songhua River by around 15,000 workers and designed by local engineering students and increasingly by artists from around the world.

The ice sculptures in the "Ice City" in Harbin are illuminated at night with multi-colored lights embedded in the ice and also by laser shows.

Firework displays are also part of the attraction along with swimming contests in pools in the frozen Songhua River, ice climbing contests and ice restaurants where customers eat hotpot in restaurants built from blocks of ice.

Nearby Yabuli Ski Resort is another pull for the nearly 1,000,000 visitors expected to arrive for the winter period.



Other big snow festivals around the world include the Sapporo Snow Festival in Hokkaido, Japan and Canada's Quebec City Winter Carnival. The Shangri-La Hotel in Harbin is the city's most luxurious hotel to stay during the Ice Festival.

images © Daniel Allen

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Hong Kong Mass Transit Logo

香港

Hong Kong's Mass Transit has a distinctive logo. The white sign on a red circular background consists of 3 strokes: a vertical line and two semi-circles at the top and bottom.

The MTR logo captures the inter-connectivity of Hong Kong's MTR with subway,  light rail and the Airport Express running out to Hong Kong International Airport.

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