Dust, sand and a movie

When I went to work on Friday I was surprised to see a lot of dirt and dust everywhere... more than usual anyways. It looked almost like a light dusting of snow, and the the air was so full of dust that it effected visibilty. I thought that maybe it was caused by construction (which is prevalent everywhere in China), but it was actually caused by a big sandstorm from Mongolia. Dalian usually doesn't get hit by these much, but Beijing usually does at least once a year. Some of my co-workers told me that Beijing is trying to think of a way to reduce the chance of one hitting there during the olympics.

On Saturday the weather turned colder and very windy, and that got rid of most of the dust. I saw some laborers working on the trees in Xinghai Square, so Spring should not be far away (I hope). Saturday night I had dinner and went to see a movie with a friend. We got to the theatre kind of late and we missed the last English showing of the movie she wanted to see, so we decided to watch it in Chinese. My friend was pretty impressed that I could figure out what was going on in the movie with my very limited skill in Chinese. Actually, I had seen the movie before on DVD but she doesn't need to know that. ;)