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.

The Beijing Bureau of Meteorology released an alert at 5pm yesterday - the first of its kind since 2004 - warning of a "cold wave" that will result in temperatures in the capital plummeting to -9 deg celsius overnight. According to the forecast,  force 5 to 6 north winds will begin buffeting the city tonight and during the day tomorrow the temperature is unlikely to rise above 0 ℃. According to authorities, the cold front will only affect Beijing for the next couple of days and temperatures are likely to rebound over the weekend. That said, they're unlikely to reach the relatively mild temperatures we've been experiencing lately.

Links and Sources
Beijing Times: 本市首次发布寒潮预警  平原地区气温下降至-9℃
Hexun: 北京首发寒潮预警(图)

European Film Festival
Many of the European embassies in Beijing have come together to present China’s first Annual European Union Film Festival. The schedule consists of films from over 20 countries and includes popular films like Once from Ireland, La Môme (My Life in Rose) from France and The Last King of Scotland from the UK. For a complete schedule click here. The screenings will take place in four locations: the French Cultural Centre, Instituto Cervantes, Italian Institute of Culture and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. Each film will be screened in its original language, with English and Chinese subtitles. Free. ID required at certain locations.

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.

Update: Today's Beijing News includes an article with more details on the new 'D' trains. They'll begin service on Dec 21 and will also be available on the Beijing-Hangzhou line - cutting the time needed to get to the home of the West Lake to 11 hours and 20 min. Keep reading below for the full schedule. The price remains an unconfirmed "over RMB 500."

Rumors that Beijing was going to introduce a cap on car registration or sales have been quashed with an announcement on Wednesday that the city government would do no such thing. Despite the director of Beijing's Transport Department, Liu Xiaoming revealing that the government was seriously considering putting a limit on the number of vehicle registrations at a recent high-level transport conference, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform (BMCDR) unequivocally announced at a press conference on Wednesday that no such measures would be introduced. The deputy head and spokesman of the commission justified the decision not to impose a limit on the grounds of a need to maintain the long-term development of the country's auto industry and sustain general economic growth.

Earlier risers in Beijing (well on the outskirts at least) would have been able to catch the annual Leonid meteor shower this morning. According to experts from Beijing Planetarium quoted in yesterday's Beijing News, the Leonid meteor shower reached it's peak (in terms of visibility from Beijing) at around 5am this morning and at that time about 120 shooting stars would be visible to the naked eye per hour. See the links below for more details about the meteor shower. The picture above was taken in 2001, during one of the peak years of the shower that come every 33 years or so. According to reports, this morning's show was not likely to be as impressive as past showers due to the brightness of the moon.