Living on the other side of the planet with my three boys

Saturday, January 17, 2009

I'm in Harbin

Stop - It's freezing cold - Stop - Ice Festival amazing - Stop - Cannot find the Ice bar :(

Friday, January 16, 2009

Getting ready for winter wonderland

This week-end Tamara and I are going to Harbin, capital of the Heilongjiang province, 1000km or so north-east of Beijing. Why would I go over there you may ask? For the Ice Festival. Every year Harbin host an ice sculpture festival which is now world wide famous and brought back some economic dynamism to the city. So despite the -20C, I don't want to miss it. Who knows if I will ever have the chance again. I am now packing looking forward for my week-end in the "Chinese Siberia"!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Work-Life Balance?

Last Friday during our yearly event there was a whole section on the meeting dedicated to work-life balance: what works, what does not work, tips to improve it, etc. We even had some Chinese guru who came over and told us we need to do more artistic activities and sport to balance our work activities. Thus the singing, dancing, painting, tai-chi and other yoga demonstration. Everyone was quite enthusiastic about it. Who wouldn't if your employer is willing to pay or help organize some yoga / belly dancing / ping-pong / latin dancing / etc. classes.

This Thursday we have a review with our Directory and Vice-President. On top of our normal workload we have to prepare tons of presentations and 1-pagers. Conclusion all of us are working crazy hours. Yesterday, a colleague ended up saying a bit before 8pm: "so much for our work-life balance. We don't have a life anymore!" I tried to convince her it's exceptional circumstances, until I was asked to provide some ideas on a specific topic by the next morning. I guess I was supposed to get during my sleep... So indeed, so much for my work-life balance :)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

My 2 new friends

Today we had an off-site event for the senior scientists in BJTC. We received as a gift a little cow (as 2009 is the year of the ox). Incidentally I won a second one later during the day. I know proudly own 2 cows dressed as watermelon. Aren't they cute?

Saturday, January 10, 2009

zhen-song blind doctor massage center

On Saturday night Dave invited us over for dinner. After great food the group split into 2: guys went for drinks and shisha, girls decided to go for a massage. Cindy recommended us to go to zhen-song blind doctor massage center where she goes once a week. It's a traditional Chinese medical center. After a quick ride in taxi we arrived there. The place look like an old dispensary, with white bed sheets everywhere and masseurs who are (semi)blind wearing white lab coat. After 50min of massage the conclusion is the following: It must have been the wrong masseuse. While it was a moment of relaxation for the others who nearly fell asleep, it was closer to torture for me. She literally hurt me. The massage was painful. I don't know how much of what she has done was supposed to help but I got out of there in pain (and 2 days later my back is hurting like hell). After this experience I am not sure I will be willing to try again traditional Chinese massage center.

Trivia

Did you know that 1st video ever played on MTV was Video Killed The Radio Star? Now you do :)
That's one of the topics we were discussing over Bujitos and Mojitos at Luga's. What's amazing about this place is that it's very small and the decoration does not really make you want to enter. But that would be a mistake because they have the best Mojitos and Margheritas of Beijing. hey also claim they have the best Bujitos but I would challenge that claim. If you order Guacamole, they come to your table with all the ingredients and you get to choose what you want in it and how spicy you want it :) That's really cool.

Friday, January 9, 2009

BJTC Yearly party - 2009

Today was the P&G Beijing yearly event. We started by the traditional business review and different results in the afternoon, then had a cultural fair with booths from different countries followed by dinner and the party. While the afternoon was pretty much predictable the 2nd part of the event was more surprising. At 6pm dinner was served and right before that everyone changed from Business casual to their party outfit. Some people (especially the girls) went into a lot of effort by renting costumes or wearing their red carpet outfit. It was sometimes difficult to recognize your colleagues. At 7pm the red carpet ceremony started, everyone entered the room walking on a red carpet where you would pose for the photographs. Given the demographics on the site, men at to go 2-3 times to make sure each girl would have en escort. 1 hour later (that’s the time needed when 500 people are attending your event) the Show started. I won’t elaborate too much about the show and will let you judge on the pictures (quite a lot I have to admit). It was a talent show i.e. each team had to come up with 2 talent shows : singing, dancing, acting, etc. covering the theme Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow. As you can see people went really for it and gave their best. Some performances were amazing, some were good, some were hilarious, some we still haven’t understood the storyline, some could have been spared. It lasted almost 3 hours (way too long but everyone should be given the chance to perform on stage). The most important is that we all had a lot of fun. The only regret is that when you spend 3 hours watching a show you don’t really get a chance to mingle.

The organizing committee:

Traditional dancing with fans:

Children in the audience:

A robot from the future:

A peacock:

A dandy:

Snow White was there with 2 dwarfs?

A magician:

A team of school girls:

Kung Fu Panda:

A Chinese pop star:

Belly dancers:

Harry Potter joined as well

Traditional Chinese dance

A Chinese boys band:

Special apparition of James Bond

and Zorro:

Even Elvis granted us a visit:

No ice in Beijing yet but Titanic was around

No show could be complete without the Village people (believe it or not some Chines people did not know them... and had to learn the choreography of YMCA)