If you think office cockroaches are the only wild animals in Beijing, think again. Nature finds its way into most big cities, and Beijing is no exception.

The capital’s winding hutongs are a long way from the steppe, but they still seem to appeal to Siberian Weasels. Known locally as huangshulang (“yellow rat wolf”), these night prowlers terrorize Beijing’s rodents after dark, and are relatively common inside the Second Ring Road: the Confucius Temple is a popular weasel hangout. (To read more on the huangshulang, pick up the 2009 edition of the Insider’s Guide to Beijing: Gabriel Monroe has the full weasel scoop on page 577.)

In every city there are local tales of unexplained circumstances and “haunted houses”.  Beijing, being such a large city still covered by much ancient architecture has inevitably gained its own reputation for being home to many haunted houses and accompanying ghost stories.

Chaonei Dajie No.81 building is one of the most famous haunted places in Beijing. On the bustling strip of Chaoyangmen Neidajie; No.81 is a rundown multi-leveled building with an ominous appearance.  This particular western structure looks quite obtrusive and unique among the flourishing Chinese architectures that surround it.

The opening up of direct flights, post and shipping between the mainland and Taiwan on Monday (or the liang'an santong) is good news for those who regularly commute between Beijing and Taibei. The price of a roundtrip Beijing-Taiwan flight has dropped by about RMB 600 and now goes for something in the vicinity of RMB 3,700 including tax. The length of the flight has also been cut by over an hour with the direct flight taking a mere 3 hours and 10 minutes.

Despite earlier reports that a large chunk of Beijing cops were going to start patrolling the city on electric bikes, traffic cops in the Tian'anmen area won’t be following suit. This week they've enjoyed revving up the 1700cc engines of three new Harleys for the cameras. Harley Davidson has donated the three bikes to the Municipal Traffic Administration Bureau. Each bike is worth about RMB 400,000.

Beijing got it's first sprinkling of snow yesterday morning, with early-risers being surprised by very light falls in the urban areas at about 7.30am. Falls were larger in the hills to the north and west of the city. The above photograph was taken at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall.

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Sina: 组图：北京迎来入冬第一场雪

We weren't expecting to see more smiley faces in the sky until those special Olympic fireworks go on sale in late January. But anyone who was out and about last night might have seen a cute little astronomical phenomenon in the southwest of the city. A smiley face with the eyes of Venus and Jupiter and a friendly little smile care of the crescent moon. The heavenly bodies not only smiled down upon the Olympic city, but could also be seen throughout China and across the Eastern hemisphere. According to experts from the Beijing Planetarium the phenomenon of three celestial bodies being so close together only occurs about once a year. Most Beijing papers reported that you won't be able to see the smiley face tonight.

According to statistics from Beijing's Municipal Health Bureau, as of October this year, 5,635 people in Beijing have tested positive for HIV/AIDS since 1985 (we've edited the proceeding sentence - click here to find out why). Of this group, 1,184 were local residents, 4,232 were from out of town and 219 were foreigners. Last year also saw sex overtake drug use as the main cause of HIV infections in the capital. As today is World AIDS Day, we've done a roundup of related-activities going on in the capital.

Ever wonder what happened to those old carriages that use to run on subway line 2 before the new carriages were introduced in the lead up to the Olympics? Well turns out they've been put to good use. The Beijing Subway Company has sent them to Sichuan to be used by schools in the quake-affected city of Guangyuan. A total of 60 old DK16 trains were transported from Beijing to Guangyuan during the past few months and are now being remodeled into student dormitories packed full with bunk beds.

Yesterday noon, Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the city's Ministry of Environmental Protection, announced that as of Nov 30, the city had reached its "blue sky" target for 2008. While we can quibble about what a "blue sky day" actually is - or even whether the official statistics have been fudged - any one who's been in Beijing during the post-Olympic period, knows that it's been a particularly pleasant autumn. By the end of November the city had recorded 256 "blue sky" days. Compare this to 1998 when the city could only achieve 100 days when the API fell below 100.

Beijing has had its very own Olympics, it's got its very own cuisine so what else could it possibly need? The people over at Nike thought they had the answer to that conundrum when they commissioned the city’s very own sneaker. You heard right, Beijing has got it’s very own Nike shoe to confirm its place on the world map.