A somewhat biased view on China…
This year, for the Chinese New Year, we plan to go to a place at least as paradisiac as boracay or Sipadan… maybe just a little bit colder!
Here are some pictures from that place! (Thanks for the pictures Olivier!)
And then, temperatures from the 10th of January till the 30th. It sometimes goes down to -32°C… brrrrrr
I’m leaving from the 16th until the 28th of February. Of course, do not expect me to be reachable neither by email or by mobile phone as we will be in the middle of… nowhere!
I’m not sure that everybody will enjoy this video as much as I do… But I’m sure that Greg, Burnasse, Louloutte and - of course - JayJay will do!
We should organize parties like that again!!!
Thanks JayJay for sharing this with us!!! *snif*
The now famous Beijing Buffalos are taking part in the Lufthansa Autumn Challenge 2006, a 5-a-side Soccer Tournament for amateur and corporate teams organized by the Red Ball Club of Beijing. The first prize? 5 round trip tickets to any European cities!
So far, we are the second of our group. Our next match is on the 8th of October at 20:00.
By the way, we are currently looking for a logo for our team. The logo should clearly show the threes B’s that define the team spirit of the Beijing Buffalos: Beijing, Buffalos and Beer and - of course - the fact that we are a Soccer Team. Please contact me if you want to send us a logo. If we choose your logo for our team’s T-Shirts, you will win a free Beer at either the Red Ball Club or the Beer Mania, the choice is yours!
Read more for the results so far!
I missed the BBP2 and BBP3 for being abroad too much… And, ahem…, I’m currently enjoying a one week business trip in the South of France… BUT!!! I might be back on the 20th of September, next Wednesday, just in time for the BBP 4 that will take place at La Baie Des Anges near Houhai on Saturday 23rd.
La Baie Des Anges just opened a few days ago and is a completely new style and typically French place with mediterranean cooking, French songs and European Electronic Music. - description from their website
Here are the needed information for you - bloggers, readers, friends - to go there!
Address: 5 Nanguanfang Hutong, Xicheng district (Just near Hutong Pizzas)
地址：西城区 后海 南官房胡同 5 号
I hope we will have some of the Today in China Bloggers! Emilie, Valentine, Xiaobudian (and Nicky, Stinky or even Human), Chloe, The Chiners, Keith, Carrie, Laurence (ermmmm… difficult since she moved to Singapore…), …
The Chiners, Francesco & Celine, just arrived two weeks ago from Belgium. Just two weeks and they already have their appartment in Tianjin and a blog on Today in China! Amazing!
Okay, so… who are The Chiners? Francesco & Celine just graduated from my university, the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. They also had some Chinese Lesson with my teacher 法兰 (Falan).
Four years ago, 法兰 started to send her students to China mainland. Every year, 4 to 6 of her students arrive in China for one or several years. Most of them stay in Beijing with some others going to Tianjin, Shanghai or Xi’an. This year, besides The Chiners, you still have Denis and Florence who will stay in Beijing, at 北京外国语大学 (Beijing Waiguoyu Daxue, “Bei Wai”), the Beijing Foreign Studies University.
Thanks to Emilie, we now have a nice video of our second scuba-diving at Beijing Blue zoo… It seems that you can see JJ and me around 2′45! ^_^
Thanks to Chris, we now have some more videos of ‘Le diner de Connes‘ on YouTube! Read the rest of this story to watch them!!!
I’m not sure I’ll tell you in which video you can see me…
By the way, let me remind you that we collected almost 10,000 euros for an association taking care of orphans! ^_^
Last Monday evening at 8, the Beijing Buffalo were playing their third game for the Red Ball Football Club’s ‘Kick back in August’, a 5-a-side Soccer Challenge with a main prize of 5,000 RMB in cash!
Well… since we lost the first two games, the main prize will not be ours but anyway, as Pierre de Coubertin said, the most important is not winning but taking part!
Anyway, I want to take this opportunity to welcome three new ‘real’ members of the Beijing Buffalos: Govinda, Nikola, John and Marc! With a special mention to Govinda who is… bouhouhouuuuu… leaving Beijing.
Thanks to Emilie for the video!
Info about the Red Ball Club:
Dongzhimenwai Dajie
Dong Fang Yin Zuo, on 2nd Ring, at Dongzhimen Wai exit
东直门桥东南角东直门南大街4号
Tel. 6417-7786
Yeah! 5 years ago - on the 17th of August 2006 - I arrived in China, expecting to stay here for just 2 years before moving elsewhere… and I’m still around and probably for at least 2 or 3 more years!
5 years… Here come the TOP 10 changes that I noticed:
[1] I’m not sure if there are less taxis than five years ago but there are much more private cars. Five years ago, the roads in Beijing were red because of the color of the Beijing Cabs. Today, a lot of people buy their own car. The direct consequences are a taxi fare that went from 1.2RMB to 2.0RMB and a much worse traffic.
[2] Talking about traffic, the city evolved a lot to compensate the growing number of cars. Lots of roads have been widened from 2 lanes to 4 or 6. And Beijing has now a fifth and a sixth ring road!
[3] I also remember going out for lunch with my colleagues for a mere 10RMB or 1EUR. Now, you’d better count twice as much, something like 25RMB. Today, we went to a Sichuan Food Restaurant for 30RMB.
[4] There are much more bars and discos. When I arrived in China, THE Bar Street was Sanlitun (三立屯) and you could hardly find any bar outside of this area. Now, we have bars all over the place with Houhai (后海), Gongti (共体) but also the West of Beijing in the Universities District as Hot Spot.
[5] More than half the old Beijing Hutong (胡同) were destroyed and it continues… Lots of them were destroyed but some are getting renewed. The problem for the people who used to live there is that the rents increased and only the wealthy ones may stay. The others are relocated in huge dormitory cities in the suburbs.
[6] Two new lines of subway are in service. The first allow you to reach the North of Beijing from both DongZhiMen (东直门) and XiZhiMen (西直门). The second one is an extension of the horizontal line, going further east from SiHui (四惠). However, the line that we are all waiting is still missing, the one going from DongZhiMen (东直门) to the airport!
[7] This one might be the most noticeable change for someone coming back to Beijing after a few years. There are much more skyscrapers than before. Most of these buildings are apartments compounds, especially in the east side of Beijing where you have the embassies and foreign companies. As an example, the tower where I live is a new tower of 26 floors. Ermmmmm… well… Of course you have no 4, 13, 14 nor 24 because of some superstition based on the pronunciation of the number 4 (四, similar pronunciation as the death 死) and therefore, my tower only has 22 floors.
[8] Am I still in China? Besides the fact that Beijingers are now used to foreigners and stopped staring at them in the street, in some part of the city and especially in some bars and restaurant there are so many foreigners that one may have difficulties to remember that they are in China.
[9] Thanks of course to the government triggered artificial rains but also to the trees and flowers that are planted on the side of the roads, Beijing gets greener and greener. This morning on my way to the office, I even had the surprise to feel the scent of the grass freshly cut.
[10] Last but not least, since May 2005, we finally have a decent choice of Belgian Beers in Beijing, with the Beer Mania!
Anything I missed?
That’s it, my one week break is over! We came back from Gansu last Monday. I spent 5 days near the Labrang Monastery in Xia He with Sebastien - a classmate from university - and his girlfriend Sophie. This trip was amazing but the journey back to Beijing was………
We left Xia He at 7:30 on Sunday Morning by bus to reach Lan Zhou in 5 hours. The road is getting better and if you go there in a few weeks, all the tunnels should be ready and the travel should take less than 4 hours.
Then, we spent the evening in Lan Zhou in a new bar that just opened in Gan Nan Lu. (Remember the name of this street if you go to Lan ZHou…) If I have to rank the place, I would say that the decoration is nice, the music is soso and the drinks were mostly free ^_^ but they only have beer and Chivas. Sebastien and Sophie left around 22:00 and I stayed to meet the people in the bar. I clearly remember two of them. There was a guy from Shanghai trying to convinced the guys from Lan Zhou that Shanghainese can drink. He was challenging everybody in the bar and, of course was totally drunk… And then a guy from Lan Zhou telling me that there was only one China, that Shanghai guys were not really Chinese and that Taiwan would be back before the Olympic Games in 2008. At 00:30, I called it a night and went back to our hotel.
The next day, our travel back to Beijing started… The airport of Lan Zhou is more than 100km far from Lan Zhou???!!!??? So, the only way to go to the airport is to take the bus (30RMB per person) or an illegal taxi (120RMB, same price as the bus if you are 4). We took the bus. On the way to the airport, the bus stopped once and then again 100 meters further and the driver left. We thougth the bus had some problem or the motor was overheating but no, everything was fine. The driver just needed to… well… 25 minutes later, we arrived at the airport.
And then we started to wait the plane for a very, very, very, very, very, very long time. When they started to distribute small bottles of water we expected that it would take some time. But when they finally told us that our plane was still in Beijing waiting for take-off we knew the delay would be considerable. They offered us dinner and we finally took off at 19:45 with a five hours delay.
And all this delay because of the rain… JJ who went to the Beijing National Airport the same day to fetch his girlfriend coming back from France told me that he had to walk the last two kilometers under heavy rain. He described the situation as being similar to a catastrophe movie. There was more than one meter of water under some bridges. All the planes leaving Beijing were delayed and it took them two hours to get a cab to return to their apartment.
Fortunately, when we arrived the situation was back to normal, at least for the taxis, and we only waited 20 minutes to get one and then 17 minutes to go from the airport to my apartment. We arrived at 22:30 instead of 17:30…
But… Wait… Aren’t the Olympic Games taking place in August 2008, the most rainy month in Beijing?
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