I love Manila

I thought you'd like to see the swimming pool I'll be swimming into this week.
PS: it's a great place to relax your back from a long flight.

Hello Kitty hospital

Tonight while flying to Manila I saw something that attracted my attention on the screen. It looked like a hospital but it was completely decorated with Hello Kitty. I thought this must be some kind of a joke, but still searched the Internet to make sure. Guess what! It does exist! A Hello-Kitty themed maternity and pediatric hospital opened in Taiwan. See by yourself (and do check all the pictures)

I still can't believe it, but it's real... Any feeling like delivering her baby surrounded by Hello Kitty?

How to entertain a girl

This afternoon having nothing special to do and feeling like I deserved a little treat (after all I've been working hard for the last 2 weeks :)), Alice and I went to the silk market to pay a visit to one of our favourite stand: the one where we make jewelry.

We did not have anything specific in mind so we tried different design and combination based on the beads that were there. The challenge in China is that we have almost completely opposite taste / styles. When it comes to beauty, clothes, fashion, jewelry, perfume etc. what we like or find attractive they usually dislike. And being French, I guess we're even more picky :)

3 hours later, I had 5 necklaces and matching earrings, and Alice 4.

PS: and to make all the girls jealous, the whole of it costs less than 30 euros...

150

Today I officially own more than 150 DVDs. DVDs being so cheap in China each trip to the DVD shop brings 10-20 new DVDs to my collection. I'm not only buying the latest movies (it's easier to buy the DVD than find a movie theater with English version) but also catch up on all those movies I considered watching but never did.
Now I still have one problem to solve. Given I watch at most 2 movies a week these days given work is crazy, it will take me months (even years) to watch all the ones I bought. Unless, I start working less...
PS: Of course, this number does not include all the TV series :)

Valentine's surprise

This morning I had the deligthful surprise to receive a link via sms. That was the link to my Valentine's gift. Someone has been super creative and knows how to score with a girl :). He not only wrote a poem to me, but recorded a video of him reading it and posted it on a website!
I have to say it's by far the best Valentine's gift I ever received!
So my sweet Valentine, THANK you so much!

It's raining!

It's raining today!
The reason why I'm so enthusiastic about it is because it has not rained in Beijing since 4 months or so. And somehow for the girl who grew up in Brittany like me it has been too long without rain. Hard to believe I know.
So today I was happy to walk into the drizzle reminding of "crachin breton" :)

Some more fireworks and fire

Last night was the Lantern festival, in other words the last day of the Spring festival / Chinese New Year celebration. It was also the last day to do fireworks and firecrackers in the streets. Therefore as of 7pm or so, the city became a giant firecrackers field. Everywhere you would go all you could hear was the cracking sound. Despite it was night, the sky was grey due to all the fireworks happening. For info, as it was the last day, there were special offers (buy 1 get 1 free, 50% off etc.) so people bought a lot.
Luckily it stopped at midnight so I could get some sleep.
Unluckily, an hotel was entirely burnt down and a firefighter died in the process. Given how many fireworks there were through the entire Spring festival and that people just blow them right on their doorstep, it's almost surprising that there were not more than 1 fire.