I made it!

Since yesterday I am officially a resident of China. I can proudly show you my work permit and residence permit. As of now I can travel in & out of China as often as I want :)

I'm glad the paperwork is over. No more blood analysis or ID pictures on blue background needed. Now I can enjoy China and Asia!

This means I can fly to Manila on Sunday. Can't wait to be there :)

Old Chinese proverb

Tell me and I will forget.
Show me and I may remember.
Involve me and I will understand.
- Lao Tsu

Survival Kit

Today we were all asked to come pick up our survival kit. As you can see P&G got us an employee survival kit containing the following items:

- band-aids

- a whistle

- a self-powered flash light

- gloves

To be honest no one has understood what we are supposed to do with this kit. A major question is still pending: surviving to what? a tsunami? a earthquake? a war? the business?

Pavement

One could assume that the purpose of having pavements is to have a place where pedestrians can walk. China slightly revisited the concept. When you have pavement on the side of the roads, it is mostly used for:
- parking bicycles. With about 10 bicycles per square meter, Chinese really optimize the space on the pavement especially near subway stations or shopping area or office.
- selling. You can buy anything you want from vendors on the pavement: food, drinks, newspapers, clothes, shoes, whatever they can think of.
- repairing bikes: what a better place than the pavement to set up your workshop and repair bikes (or even shoes)?
- smoking: men gather in small groups and stand there smoking, chatting and spitting.
As a consequence, most pedestrians end up walking on the street as there is no space left on the pavement...

Public Service Bureau

Today I went to the Public Service Bureau (PSB) to apply for my residence permit. This is the last step of the immigration procedure :) I was supposed to meet the lady from Fragomen at 1:30pm there. 1:30pm no one. I call and she tells me she is stuck in the traffic and should be there shortly. 1 hour and 3 phone calls later she finally arrived. She apologized saying she had to deal with an emergency. I still wonder why she couldn't tell me the truth when I called before leaving the office. I don't real fancy wasting 1 hour of my time...
Once she got there, we went to the desk where I was supposed to have my interview. Actually there was no interview. All they wanted was to see my face and get me to sign a paper. Then the fun started. On Sunday I'm supposed to fly to Manila. Therefore I need my passport back latest on Friday. Fragomen tells me it's going to be ready on Monday morning. Monday morning, Friday afternoon, same thing for me. So I asked to get it Friday. Fragomen says no. I cannot change the rules from the government. I said fine. I will ask the government myself. And there she panicked. No way I can talk to the government myself. She put her boss on the phone to explain to me that I can't and that anyway most likely that agent can't decide. Fair enough, let me talk to the agent's boss. Even worse! They really freaked out. But by insisting long and hard enough, they said it would be ready by Friday, that they will ask for an exception :)
Like everywhere else when it comes to administrative matters, there is always a way around. Now keep you fingers crossed for Friday.

What a brunch!

Today we took off at 11am to go for a brunch at the Westin. After a 30min ride in taxi we arrived at the hotel and entered the Senses. What a place! The Senses offers different buffets where you can find everything you can think of having for your brunch: eggs, bacon, noodle soup, Beijing duck, dumplings, sushis, fruits, sea food (including lobster and oyster), cheese, pasta, pizza, BBQ meat, pastries, cakes, bread, ice cream, chocolate fountain, and many more. To help you go through this incredible choice of food, you can choose from a wide selection of wines, juices, coffees, champain.
Clearly we all ate and drank too much. Several hours later I'm still full and very please of all the dishes I tried. No wonder this place has been ranked one of the best places for brunch in Beijing :)
PS: dear visitor(s), if you happen to be there on a Sunday, I might take you there...

Saving energy time change

In case you wonder, not only China only has 1 time zone across the country, but they don't change time neither in winter and spring. As a consequence I am now 7 hours ahead of Europe.

Great Wall - The video

Here is the video from the Great Wall.

Mamma Mia

After our stop at Blue Frog we headed to a DVD shop and bought some DVDs, again for nothing. Being all quite tired the girls decided to watch Mamma Mia tonight. The boys of course discarded the idea and went for football...
Ainoa and Alice joined me in my apartment to watch the movie. 1st challenge, the temperature. Luckily they had brought the extra blankets I requested. 2nd challenge get the DVD to play. After several attempts, I call the front desk which sent "the engineer" (actually a technician) to fix it. Given he didn't find what was wrong, we had the house keeping bringing me a new DVD player. I would say my DVD player is now one from the 21st century :)
These 2 points sorted out we started the movie. It was quite a laugh. We didn't take it seriously and were singing along. As much as Meryl Streep can sing, Pierce Brosnan should really not. Let's face it after Mamma Mia he lost all his sex appeal :(

Yashow market

This afternoon I joined Arif and Bert to go to the Yashow market, temple of fake clothes. Arif wanted to buy some winter clothes, given the sudden change in the weather. Arif hates shopping so we had to minimize the time spent there. Honestly I don't think I will buy much from that place. It is a mess and in the end all the different stands sell more or less the same items. After it's just a matter of finding something to your taste and bargain. In 1 hour we managed to find 1 sweater, 1 pair of jeans and 1 coat for less than 50 euros. Arif was quite impressive at bargaining with the ladies in the shop.

The crazy thing is that the stands are very small and packed with merchandise. So no fitting room if you want to try something. Therefore they just draw a piece of fabric, like a curtain, behind which you try the clothe. Quite fun actually :)

After that we walked to the Village the brand new shopping area, Western style, had a stop at the Apple store and went for "lunch-dinner" at Blue frog, enjoying the happy hour.

16C

That's the temperature in my bedroom!
No wonder I can't get rid of my cold, I actually keep on developing it when I sleep. Tonight I'll wear a sweater and maybe a scarf...
Luckily testing of the heating system is planned for next week. In the meantime I'll wear my coat :)

Tissue box

Having noticed I had a big cold and was not at the best of my energy, my Chinese colleagues started to make sure there was always a tissue box next to me in meeting room. So sweet :)

Fall has finally arrived in Beijing

Since Monday, temperature started to drop, sky is cloudy and very low. Fall is here. In just 1 day we moved from summer to fall. Quite a change. As a consequence I caught a cold. I now have a running (soon to be red) nose.
Tonight it's raining like hell and from the 14th floor where I seat the wind makes scary noises. Let's hope tomorrow will be better.

The Great Wall

Today 8 of us took a day trip to the Great Wall. We left Somerset at 9:30am and headed to Mark's place to pick up the rest of the group. After 2 hours drive witnessing crazy behaviours on the roads we arrived at Jinshanling. We had decided to go to a section of the wall further from Beijing to avoid tourists. We started by taking a telecabin to reach the 1st tower of our expedition. Quite an experience as it was the slowest telecabin ever. To the poin we wondered if we would eventually make it to the top. Once at the 1st tower we started our hike. 10 km between Jinshanling and Simatai. 10 km of beauiful landscape. 10 km of going up and down folowing the hills. In total 30 towers. I learned that 2 towers are separated by the distance covered by 2 arrows, to make sure ennemies would have no chance to pass the wall. To be honnest some sections of the wall are quite challenging as they have not been restaured and you climb more than you walk (Mum, Dad, remember the way up to the Cedar forest in Avignon, same story here, except no trees). For sure this hike is not to be taken if you're not in good physical conditions, but if you can do it, highly recommended as very few people take it.
30 towers later we arrived in Simatai and all of us went for the zip line to go down. 1 minute hanging in the void on top of the lake. Quite an experience (and much better than another 20min walk down). One on the bank of the lake we took a boat to reach the entrance of the site. Boat was designed to take 8 people and of course 13 of us got in it. The driver made sure to go fast enough so Ainoa and myself got wet :( not fun for us but lot's of laugh for the others.
We drove back to Beijing and most of us slept in the car, exhausted after such an amazing day.
After a well deserved dinner at Jin Ding Xuan, the most famous Cantonese restaurant in Beijing, I am going to bed for sure dreaming about the beautiful landscape I have seen today.
PS: Pictures will come as soon as I have processed them.

Summer Palace

Take a tour at the summer palace. Enjoy!

Cafe Sambal and Bed

Last night I joined a group of P&Gers for dinner and drinks.
We first had dinner at Cafe Sambal, rated as one of the best SouthAsia restaurant in Beijing by the readers of the Beijingers (each year the Beijinger issues a list of the best restaurants and bars, a good starting point to discover restaurants in Beijing). As you can see, you seat on mini benches to have a true Malaysian experience. Tanguy ordered food for the whole group and we tasted a bit of everything. Excellent!
Afterwards, we walked a bit further to the Bed bar. This is a great place to go as a group as you can seat in one of the "chambers". Actually, there are no chairs, but rugs and comfy cushions on which you seat enjoying your drink. An experience not to miss.

Susan's magic boxes

Alice arrived yesterday and tonight we opened the 3 boxes Susan left for us. Between the hangers, vases, dishes, sponges were a wireless router and a wireless phone. I now have wireless in the apartment. Believe it or not it makes a big difference not to have to sit each time at the desk by the TV :)
It makes an even bigger difference to have all my clothes nicely hanging in the closet now :)) Sometimes little details can make your life way better.

Bodhi

Last night, after a long day of conferences and a nice dinner in a Malaysian restaurant, Ainoa and I decided to go for a massage. On the 2nd floor of Somerset, there is a massage parlour: Bodhi sense. We went for the Chinese massage based on the acupuncture point. After an amazing freshly squeezed apple juice, we changed for some comfortable pyjamas and laid down. From there started 60min (yes 60min!) of intensive massage. A nice Chinese girl comes and rubs you, squeezes you, stretches you, presses here and there, from head to feet, using their hands, arms, elbows... After that, you're so relax that you could sleep right there. It took me a good half an hour before I could get back to a normal rhythm. Highly recommended!
Now I know why Susan had a fidelity card. I can't wait until my next one :)
PS: my only regret is that despite all her efforts (and she tried hard) the poor girl never managed to relax my back. As she said "back not relaxed"...

InnovAsia

Today and tomorrow Beijing hosts InnovAsia, an R&D symposium. Basically you spend your day listening to diverse speakers, visiting booths, connecting with people from the other technical centers and socializing.

After a long day of conferences and poster we gathered in the garden of the Sheraton Great Wall for a cocktail and dinner. As you can see, they really put some effort into it as they managed to display P&G on the hotel.

While the cocktail was pretty poor (beer or juice), dinner was very good: American BBQ revisited by China :) Afterwards the Chinese and Indian teams entertained us with some singing and dancing. I let you judge by yourself (sorry for the poor quality of the video but that was taken on the spot as I wasn't sure I could describe it).
For sure we laughed a lot...

Summer palace

Coming soon (just give me the time to go through the 300 and more pictures I took)...

The Ainoa's effect

Today I decided to go to the Summer Palace; one of the big palaces to visit in Beijing. After 1 hour of transportation I arrived there and started taking pictures. One of the objectives of the day was to learn how t use my new camera (today Iso and WB buttons, 1 step at a time). So I was busy making pictures and figuring out the difference between the different parameters, when I heard "Lamia! Is that you?" No what are the odds that I would meet someone I know at the Summer Palace, knowing there were some 35000 people visiting the place today... It's called the Ainoa's effect. Wherever Ainoa goes, she always meets someone she knows. Even in Beijing :) It was great to meet her and we decided to continue the visit together. Still cannot believe we found each other!

Weird things happen in the subway

On my way to the Summer Palace, I was reading in the subway. Next to me was a family with a little boy, maybe 1.5 year old. He keeps on staring at me and every now and then smiled back.
Suddenly the mother starts to make big gesture and screaming at her husband. Of course I look up. Apparently the baby boy had to pee, so she took an empty water bottle from her bag and helped her son while he was peeing in it. Yes, right there, in the middle of the subway. Once he was done, she put it back in her bag and the travel continued. Now I understand why small kids were trousers that have a wide opening between the legs. Still several hours afterwards, I can't believe what I saw!

Sunny afternoon in Beijing

After the long flight I was delighted to land in Beijing and discover bright sun. At that moment my coat and boots felt really warm... but I had to wear them as they would not fit in the luggage allowance anyhow.
I took a taxi from the airport which driver didn't really know where Somerset is. So somehow I pulled out a map of Beijing and showed it on the map. Imagine the scene, me speaking English, he answering in Chinese or just with "OK". Eventually we made it. Unlike the taxi driver in Brussels who helped me with my 3 suitcases (not easy when you only have 2 hands), the Chinese one, just droped me there, at the entrance...
After unpacking I decided to go grocery shopping. I took my bike and did my shopping with it. The weather being so nice I actually biked a bit around before getting to the shops. I really enjoy biking in Beijing. If only Brussels was as flat and as safe for bikes, I would take one there.

AF 126

I took off from Paris yesterday direction Beijing. Flight wen smoothly although no lobster this time :( The new selection of movies is no as good as the one last month. The big highlight was Hancock. If you've seen that movie you'll understand that it's not worth being the top of the list. If you haven't seen it, don't bother. So I backed up into the kids' selection and watched some Harry Potter.
I had asked to be on one of the 1st rows, i.e. facing the wall. I discovered last flight that you actually have a bit more space for your legs and can completely lie down. That's the tip of the day :)

iPass

iPass is a wireless tool that P&G got us on our laptops. I have to say that I quite enjoy whenever I am in an aiport to be able to connect to internet, send some emails, chat with friends or even update my blog :)

Z visa

I picked up yesterday my Z visa for China. I can now say I have completed step 2 out of 6 until I get the residency in China. Patience, another month or more of administrative tasks ahead of me.

Tomorrow I'm flying back to Beijing as my new team is already missing me :)

It's raining...

... and I'm sick. I didn't resist the Belgian cold and rain. I feel like hot tea and spending the day on the sofa under a blanket watching DVDs (yes the ones I bought for almost nothing in China).