Two New Year's in one Year

Yesterday was a very exciting day: mostly for the Chiense though, as they were celebrating the beginning of the Year of the Ox. This started at around 8 in the morning with fire works and more or less loud fire crackers and is still ongoing.

Rob and I therefore ran away from this to Chaoyang Park, together with another new colleague, because the weather was gorgeous (although freezing) and the boys hadn't seen much of Beijing yet.

So we did it all: Chaoyang Park with its early New Year stalls, then Hohai with its beautiful Yunnan food and frozen lake, Beihai with the great view over Beijing and then the bell tower with the cute little Hutongs around it, that are not only warm in this weather, but also have lovely drinks.

So, the day went quick and when we stepped out into the cold again, the fireworks were now visible in the dark. Rob and I set off to meet one of our homecoming friends and her family for dinner and then enjoyed the fireworks with great view over the lake.

Back in the flat it felt like a war zone. Neither Rob nor I had ever seen so many fireworks and there was no way we could go to bed with all that noise. And so we stood and watched the city celebrate and scaring away all evil spirits (if it didn't work I'd be surprised, because I suddenly understood why all Westerners had fled the city beforehad).

Today, there are more fire crackers and fire works and it sounds like it's gonna continue for at least a couple more days. When the Chinese celebrate it's certainly not half-hearted....

The First Farewell Party

Life moves so quickly in Beijing and last night I attended the first Goodbye Party (sniff). Charlotta, who started in the Delegation a couple of weeks before me and now her internship is already finished.

We shared so many lunches, meetings and trips to the manicure place and the fake bags place that I wish the internship would last another year or so. But, ... appartently people have other lives to go back to Sweden and have to finish university or some excuse like that.

So, all that was left for us to do, was to get Charlotta a little present and to celebrate her return to Europe. Who would have thought the first leaving party would come so quickly?

As a kind of comfort, Rob and I used the slight hangover this morning to plan our next trips in and around China ... and got 'The Mongol' as a kind of preparation for our trip in June; research so to speak. Obviously with our ever lovely travel group, whose members will return from the States and Europe soon.

So, leaving and returning are holding hands and I'm looking forward to visiting Sweden soon!

The first Visitor

Last Friday was the end of one of the busiest weeks at work yet, everything seemed to go terribly wrong and projects were develeoping a little bit out of order. Buth then on Friday my saviour arrived at Beijing airport: Rob will help me organise the Chinese environment sector, a task appropiate for six months, hihi!

The whole weekend was spent trying to get rid of the Jetlag, so we bought a 'Flying Pigeon' for Rob and cycled up to Hohei to watch the Chinese play on the frozen lake and the Chinese watching us not trying to fall over on the ice. After a nice, not so Chinese, hot chocolate we finshed the weekend off with a beautiful dinner in a Yunnan restaurant, which is always terribly busy and probably the only place in China where you have to wait for a table for about half an hour. As if this wasn't torturing enough when you're hungry, some Chinese see the waiting for a table as optional, squeeze past the host guy and try and find a table bythemselves. We have not seen this strategy working out particularly well in the past since if there are no tables, there aren't any tables, no matter how determined you ignore the line!

So, next week will see Rob and me encountering the joys and difficulties or rivers and forests in China, I'll keep you updated ...

Oman

Well so far I think we've been pretty regular with the blog, but we'll both make an effort in 2009 to keep it even more up-to-date.

So to bring you all in line with the Christmas break, here are selected photos and videos from our trip to Oman:











These are just a brief taste of the photographs, the rest of which (mine anyway) are on my flickr page here.







Again, just a few of the many videos I took.
If you're interested in seeing any more, they're on the youtube page, here.

In summary, Oman was beautiful and interesting with a strong cultural heritage and it also managed to be a relaxing and very enjoyable holiday with Caroline's folks.