Tuesday 29 June 2010

Just a link to Flickr

Just uploaded a few shots of Neil and Jo's visit.
They can be found here.

Saturday 26 June 2010

Travelling in & outside of China

One of our favourite hobbies is leaving our little Beijing to go out into the vast lands called Asia, to see what the crack is. Last year we managed to do quite a few weekend trips, which was great, this year, we have been struggling, but luckily our European visitors inspired us, so we've recently seen Chengdu, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Very different from each other, but each one interesting and a nice excuse to leave Beijing and see something new. There are still quite a few places in China we want to see, so hopefully we can plan some more weekend trips for the next semester.

And then there is of course travelling in other Asian countries, that are on China's doorstep: Mongolia, the Koreas, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, ... you name it. There all a flight away, equal to flying from the UK to Greece, and it's super-exciting.

I was lucky that I could tag along to a trip to Laos recently, and made the strange experience to meet backpackers and having to answer the question: "So where have you come from, how long are you staying in Laos and where are you going next?" with "China, 1 week, China" It's hard to comprehend that from here we have access to so many dream destinations that usually form an integral part of travelling the world, I guess in some sense we do the same, just totally differently! I think that's one of the privileges that ex-pats over here sometimes forget when complaining about this or that, we can just jet off for a week to Thailand and not spend 2000 Euro on a return flight, and we can go back any time for more.

The must-see destinations on our list before eventually leaving China are definitely Mongolia, North Korea, Japan and Taiwan, so if anyone is interested in joining, just let us know!!!!

Thursday 24 June 2010

What has happened since my last post

Sorry for the uninspiring title but that's pretty much the purpose of the blog innit?

I'm sitting on the sofa using my phone to write this update. I'm listening to Chrissy Waddle on Five Live using my headphones, Caroline is having a couple of hours sleep before getting up to watch Germany. I can't sleep like that otherwise I'd be semi-conscious for the Germany game.

Just a quick mention of the England game. Obviously I'm happy we qualified, but there were too many antagonistic idiots booing the star-spangled banner when both matches were playing in the pub we were in. It's not a big deal but it's a bit embarrassing when you go to the match with an American, a Chinese and a German. A bit of dignity would have been nice. Anyway…

I've uploaded some photographs and videos recently, so you've seen what we've been up to.

The word recently has been visitors. First the in-laws and next the Cloughs. It's been brilliant.

Since we've been in Beijing we've been lucky enough to have accommodation big enough to welcome just about any guests who are able to come.

I had such a fantastic time in China for Mike and Shelley's wedding in 2006 and staying with them for the first week in Suzhou made life so much easier. It gave us the confidence that the next two weeks were gong to be fairly easy, although of course communication was always a challenge.

As I felt in 2006 and I still feel four years (and two years living here) later, China is such a foreign place that it makes for a brilliant visit. The food, the language, the culture, the architecture, everything is so different that it's a real experience - just what you want from long distance travel.

Anyway this is not an advert, I'll leave other people to decide whether they've enjoyed their visit or not. And still others to decide if they can come to see us or not.

Both Caroline and I are lucky, in that our jobs are sufficiently flexible that we can host guests without needing to take weeks and weeks off work, which is obviously not possible.

It does mean however that we are either at work, or we are doing touristy activities. Obviously I'm always quite enthusiastic, Caroline gently mocks me because things are either the best ever or the worst ever. Anyway, it's actually great to do the touristy things again because it 'forces' you to do things that in normal life you tend not to bother with. I've probably mentioned this before, but when I lived in Brussels, I always tried to walk through the Grand Place whenever possible. In Beijing, it's great to have the excuse / inspiration to go to the hutongs (old alleys), the Summer Palace, the Lama Temple, Tian'anmen Square, Forbidden City, the Great Wall and all the rest.

It does mean we're super busy though and that's why we've been rather quiet on here and via email.

Caroline did get back from a week in Laos recently though, so she's going to blog soon with some exclusive elephant photographs.

Signing out now, I'll finish up with the hope that Germany do the business in just under an hour.

Friday 18 June 2010

Some uploads

Subtle changes will be noticed by anyone who has visited before.
The photograph above for example is of the same building (the Bell Tower in Xi'an) and was still taken by one of us, but is the 2010 redux by Caroline, rather than the 2006 original by me. A fresh new take on an old classic I'm sure you'll agree.
Give me some feedback, if this new design causes irritation I can easily switch it back.

Anyway, I am in the process of catching up with things as promised.

So I have uploaded three new videos to my youtube page and a new set of photographs from Caroline's parents visit to my flickr page.

I'll actually get some blogging done this weekend too, so check back.

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Still here

It's safe to say we've been complacent with updates on here recently, however it is complacency with a reason.

For about the last month, since my rather difficult attempt to sit the EU concours we have had guests. First Caroline's parents and then Jo and Neil Clough have been to see us.

It's brilliant when people come to visit and both Caroline and I are lucky that we can take time off, or at least work quite flexibly in order to do lots of visits and trips. For both sets of visitors we have spent just under a week in Beijing visiting the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square, the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, Yonghegong Lama Temple and other sites including just generally trying to give an impression of how we live on a day-to-day basis.

As an aside from Greg's recent email I realise that I didn't finish the tale of the concours sufficiently. As I've likely explained to you in the past (assuming we know each other) the concours is the test by which the EU Institutions hire their workers. Both Caroline and I passed a concours for contract workers (CAST 27) in 2006 and it was this success that got Caroline her current job and our life in China. The most recent test is for permanent officials and is therefore both popular and quite rare. In fact I've read at the EPSO Website, which administers the process that more than 30000 people sat the recent exam. So I was never exactly confident of passing, but did want to at least sit the test. So anyway after a number of complicated efforts I was able to get a rearranged test date. It did seem to go reasonably well, although I would say that wouldn't I…
Anyway, according to that aforementioned Website, the results of the test will be posted in mid-June. I've checked today and there's nothing there yet, but you can be sure I'll post the results as soon as I get them.

So as we've been enjoying our guests and visiting Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Xi'an, Suzhou and others there hasn't been much time for anything else other than work. Emails and blogs have fallen by the wayside. And even sleep has become a relatively rare commodity.

I'm now at hongqiao airport in Shanghai, waiting for a flight back to Beijing and Caroline is in Laos for a few days with Sunnia. So apart from the football, which I am enjoying despite the paucity of most games, the next few dad will be relatively quiet and back in the normal routine. So I'm going to take the opportunity to upload photographs and write a couple of posts on here about our travels - there's always stories to relate.

Stick with it and you'll get some impressions of a few more cities we have visited.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone