Why it's always good to carry a camera

Yes, that is a man, hanging upside down in a tree with his feet wedged between branches, repeatedly running his fingers through his hair.

I have nothing more to add.

Reindeers in Sanlitun

An example of Christmas decoration from the nearest shopping village. It's getting colder now, very christmassy and not long until we fly back!

Double Header

Here are a couple of photographs that really need to be placed together.
Found in the local Kempinski hotel, where the observant of you will remember we lived for our first month here in China. Anyway, I was on my way to the deli this morning to pick up some croissants when I saw this teutonic take on the terracotta warriors.



These are traditional German nutcrackers, the best of which are from Saxony I believe and they are a popular Christmas decoration, but normally a little smaller...

On the way home I saw a gentleman who had 'blacked-up' making his way into the Dutch Embassy to entertain the children, unfortunately he was on a bike and was gone before I could take his photograph.

Hoist, petard, etc.

Himmo's festive exuberance has proven to be too much already.
Only the third of December and already we've missed a day / photograph.
Here's a weak effort to keep you going 'til tomorrow.

It's two people picking over a turkey carcass, that's festive right?

Christmas Decoration European style

Today's picture shows our efforts to recreate a bit of Christmas in our flat. The pine branches are not very nice here, I don't think the trees get enough water, which would make sense, considering how dry Beijing is or most of the year. Luckily, Chinese people are generally good business people and therefore provide for our cravings for green pine.

Feast or famine

Typical, you don't hear from us for weeks, then suddenly there are four posts in a week. Well, that's just the way it goes, I make no apologies for our irregularity, we're just too busy / lazy (delete as appropriate).

I've been promising for a while that I would post some info about our new apartment. We've still only been living here for two months, so it does still qualify as new. As you've seen, we have had plenty of socialising events here including house-warming parties, book clubs, thanksgiving and general eating, drinking and wiing.

It's a beautiful apartment and we're both feeling pretty lucky to have such a nice place. It's brand new and we are the first to live here. Which is great, although it does mean there are a few little problems here and there to get sorted; a shower door fitted too high, accidental free drinking water, nothing to serious.

So, first of all, a few links to give you some background on the compound called 当代Moma. Here you can see some nice, professional pictures of the place. It is in Chinese, so for those of us that don't read more than a handful of characters, you'll just have to click around and get an idea of what's going on.

This article on Treehugger (a green website) has a couple of videos linked and explains some of the environmental credentials of the place. These were pretty important to us in our choice of where to live. So we have geothermal heating, water recycling and LEED energy-saving credentials for the bulding.

Finally, this link is to the site of the Architect, Steven Holl. Some great pictures here and quotes about the compound from around the world.

Finally, just to personalise this a little bit here is a video of our apartment:

Also a link, in case the embedded video doesn't work for you.

And finally, a shorter video of the place at night:

And the link.