Brussels' fireworks on New Year's Eve

Hum, where to start? Maybe by the description of it on the Brussels Tourists Information site: "New Year's fire works. Magnificent pyrotechnical show to celebrate the new year! At midnight the sky over Brussels lights up with a multicoloured light show" That was the expectation especially when the press was revealing all the secrets of it.
Now the reality was very disappointing as the sky of Brussels did not light up. There was fog so they couldn't do the fireworks as high as planned meaning it was barely higher than the buildings around the Mont des Arts where it was shot. So unless you were standing right in front of it, there was little chance you could see anything at all. For sure not worse the effort of going out in the coldest New Year's Eve of Belgium in the last 30 years.

Australia

Tonight after a long day of travel and settling down, Wolfram took me to the movie to watch Australia. I had no clue what the story was, all I knew was it is one of the blockbusters of this Christmas staring Nicole Kidman. It was an excellent girl movie: a saga with love, war, passion, vengeance, action, each time you believe it's all sorted out something happens, mixed feelings, lot's of emotions, etc. It reminded me of the Thorn Birds, in a better and shorter version. Nicole Kidman is fantastic (as usual) in the role of an English lady showing up in deep rural Australia. Hugh Jackman, the male lead actor, is the archetype of THE man; in every scene he appears there is no way Nicole Kidman could resist (should I mention the scene where he showers or his entrance at the ball in smoking?). In summary, ladies, go for it, you won't regret it!

I'm back home

I'm home, after almost 3 months away. Having travelled so much in the last couple of months it feels weird to be back in Brussels. Maybe it's the absence of new things to see / discover, maybe it's a consequence of travelling lot, i.e. you end up loosing sight of your home, maybe it's because there was no Rajah in my cold apartment waiting for me. I'm sure it will be better tomorrow once Ive emptied the suitcases, done the laundry, went grocery shopping and started to catch up with friends :)

We made it!

After 3 days of hard work, of doubt, of fear of having lost 2 pieces, of excitement each time we placed one piece, of madness because there were so many pieces left and looking the same, we made it! 3 generations worked on this puzzle and we're very proud it's done :)

211 things a clever girl can do

This is the title of the book my sister got me for Christmas. This book gathers a collection of practical tips for us, girls. For example:
- How to bake an egg like a pro
- How to prepare royal icing
- How to make fire in the chimney
- How to succeed in removing the lid from a jam pot
- How to know if a man like you
- How to do a French manicure at home
- How to loose 3kg in 3 hours
- How to manage side parking
- How to avoid the 2nd date
- How change a tire without breaking a nail
and so on. Ladies this is the survival book you need. Not only it's very useful but on top it's written in a funny way which makes it a delight to read. Boys, you can always check the 211 things a clever boy can do.

2000 pieces

Every year for Christmas we get a new jigsaw puzzle. Usually we get the one from the Unicef but since last year, they don't do grown-up puzzle anymore :( So being unfaithful to the Unicef (and because 100-200 pieces is a piece of cake) we received this year a puzzle of a painting of Kandisky: 2000 pieces :). We only have 3 days to finish it... Will the family be up for the challenge?

THE bag

I've been dreaming of this bag for months. I looked for it in all the duty-free I visited in the last 3 months but never I found it. In desperation I even searched for it in the temples of fakes in Beijing but the Chinese haven't copied it :( So finally I bought it!!!!!

PS: Thanks a lot to my sister, my brother, and my aunt who contributed to this gift.

3 brother & sisters = 3 paintings

For Christmas (and birthdays) this year the 3 of us received a painting from Renato, modern colorist painter and friend of the family. Each painting is based on a description of us and our favourite colors.
I'm looking forward to putting my very first original painting in my apartment.

Merry Christmas to all of you and your families!

Christmas Rajah

Our 2008 Christmas tree

Spending a few hours in Hong-Kong

As promised, here is my entry on the few hours I spent in Hong-Kong :)

On Friday morning I woke up 1 hour later than I had planed and decided to go walk around the hotel. The hotel was located in the south of Kowloon facing the Hong-Kong island. I walked through some park and reached the "avenue of stars" which is the Hong-Kong version of la Croisette in Cannes or Hollywood boulevard. It was very nice walking there and enjoying the view on the skyscrapers of Hong-Kong. I also discovered many names of famous actors from China, whom I've never heard of except Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. I cannot wait going back there and see the view at night and enjoy the light show.

After 1 hour of hard work

all my gifts are wrapped :) Now I can start working on the food chapter of Christmas.

The tallest man in the world

Today as I was getting in the plane I noticed the man before me in the line was tall, very tall, extremely tall actually, so tall he nearly touched the ceiling with his head. While i'm wondering how he will manage 10 hours of flight with such long legs, I was told he is the tallest man in the world. I was a bit surprised by the somehow incompatibility of tall and Chinese, but you know nature has its ways.

So his name is Bao Xhisun and he measures 2.36m. He is the tallest man alive at this day and he makes Business class look like economy :)

La Mome

After packing (all the Christmas gifts are in; I made sure of that) I started another movie: La Mome. It's a French movie about Edith Piaf's life (La vie en rose in English) staring Marion Cotillard as the singer. I heard it was good but it was even better than that. Marion Cotillard was amazing. She literally captivated me and I stayed there for 2 hours staring at the screen. No wonder she got an Oscar for Best actress. I don't often recommend French movies but that one is a must see.

Disaster movies

Today as I decided to take it easy I planned to rest. I had about 12 DVDs on hands so decided to watch "The day after tomorrow". What I like about movies like this one is that they are predictable. Usually some big catastrophe is coming around (a storm, a meteorite, a nuclear strike, an earth quake, an eruption, you name it) and the hero somehow knows about it and tries to warn the authorities when he sees the 1st signs. Of course nobody listens to him and things get worse. Until we reach a point were the authorities come back to him and ask for his help. At this point he will save the city / country / world. Add a touch of love and you have the scenario.
The good thing about disaster movie is that you can doze off every now and then and never loose track of the story :)

Transit in Beijing

I made it back to Beijing. It was tough as my ears didn't like the flight at all. Once in Beijing I had to queue 15min outside to get a taxi and that made me feel worse again. Now I'm on my way to bed and hopefully will manage to sleep between coughing. Tomorrow will be rest only as somehow I have to get into that plane on Sunday. The good thing is that I will fly business so I can spend most of the flight sleeping or just lying down watching movies.
PS: I do have a request for when I get home: I want some veloute de tomates with croutons like only my mum can make. And I hope the kettle is ready for liters of Christmas tea :)
PS2: I will tell you all about Hong-Kong as soon as get better.

I'm in Hong-Kong

I left Manila this afternoon and arrived in Hong-Kong a couple of hours ago. This was supposed to be my mini-break in Hong-Kong to enjoy the place and my first action has been to order a Club sandwich from the room service and get ready to bed. As the taxi driver said several times when I was coughing heavily in the car "are you sick Mam?" So I'm grabbing my new best friend, namely the tissue box, and will get some sleep so I can be in shape tomorrow and enjoy the place (I have 7 hours or less to spend).

It smells clean

I stopped counting how many times I heard that sentence. So tell me, how do your clothes smell after you wash them?

Winter in Asia

The definition of Winter in Asia is very broad. As I was getting confused I got back to the definition: meteorological winter is the season having the shortest days and the lowest temperatures. Unlike what you might spontaneously think it does not necessarily mean cold, snow and ice. Just lower temperature.
So given it's winter in the Philippines, it's normal if I have a cold :) and more importantly for Chinese new year end January I might come over and enjoy the beaches instead of staying the icy Beijing.

Jollibee

Jollibee is THE fast-food chain in the Philippines. Today we ordered food from there as everyone told me I have to try it.
The experience was not very conclusive, maybe because I still haven’t recovered appetite, maybe because it tastes as cheap fast-food (in line with Quick in Belgium) and surely because I found a hair in the burger :(

Being sick on a business trip is not fun :(

It started on Sunday night when I woke up at 3am because my throat was hurting and I couldn’t breeze. Then on Monday on top of my stomach & co being messed up, I had a running nose. Everybody was joking as how could I catch a cold when I come to a warmer country (fair question). Monday afternoon was worse as I started to shiver and feel very tired. Knowing me this meant fever. I went back to the hotel after the interviews, straight to bed and slept. I hate being sick on business trip because you’re not in your home, not in your bed, I didn’t have all my pharmacy with me (as much as I was prepared for stomach, fever I hadn’t anticipated), I had to call the room service to get something to drink. I was somehow happy when I realized I had 2 sachets of aspirin with me which helped getting reed of the fever finally at 4am. Tuesday morning, I’m exhausted but I feel better. I really wish I was home and not in a hotel room, and that I could stay in bed and/or watch movies instead of going to the research…

Max's chicken

During the research today for lunch we had Max's chicken. Max 's is an institution in the Philippines when it comes to chicken. And let's face it, it was very good roasted chicken, one of the best I've ever had.

Mango Mango Mango

Mango is the national fruit of the Philippines. Everywhere you go ou can find them as fruit (fresh or dried) or as juice. I have to say it's one of the treat of coming here. Imagine starting your day drinking freshly squeezed mango juice and have a fruit salad with watermelon and mango. Mmmmhhh...

6:30am Sunday morning

It's 6:30am. It's Sunday. I'm waking up as I have a flight to catch. Even if I know it will take me to Manila and in a few hours I will be enjoying summer again, it's too early for a Sunday morning. Especially when you joined Alice's promotion dinner/drink celebration and clearly didn't have enough sleep :)

Managing people

On Monday my managing skills were questioned. As a consequence I asked my team this week to give me feedback on how I manage / coach / train them. Today they invited me for lunch as it was my last day in the office and told me how much they enjoy working with me and how much they've learned already. We had a great time. And I have to say it re-assured me on my people management skills to hear their positive feedback. I have a great team :)

What can you do in the subway in Beijing

1- Sleep
2- Watch TV on your cell phone
3- Listen to music on your cell phone
4- Read a newspaper on your cell phone
5- Play games on your cell phone
6- Have a chat via sms
7- Give a call
8- Read free newspapers
9- Watch TV on the screens of the subway. It's a good opportunity to watch the video clips of the Olympics, in case you missed them.
10- and some old fashion people like me, read a book.

Average height

Given that someone keeps on repeating that I am small and therefore should not have issues shopping in Asia, I would like to share some data to support my point. The average height for women in China is 162.56 cm, 160 cm in Singapore, 152 cm in India and 151.8 cm in the Philippines. For perspective France is 164.6 cm and Germany 165 cm. I hope this proves my point.

It's snowing!

It doesn't last but feels good still :)

Shopping in Beijing

All of those who know me know that I am a shopping addict. I can spend hours shopping and never have enough of it. Now unfortunately for me (or fortunately for my bank account) I live in Beijing and Beijing is not a place where I can shop. Why is that you would ask? After all it's the capital of China, millions of shops at hand, what's wrong with me. It's very simple. If you want to shop in Beijing here are your options:
1- Tourists places like Yashow or Hongqiao. Both are paradise for fakes. You can find almost everything you want in there for which you will have to bargain as the basic rule is to try to get as much money from you as possible. You have to be willing to spend hours searching for what you want, bargaining and of course risking a fine at the customs.
2- Xidan street. That's where the Beijingers, the Chinese ones, go for shopping. A whole street with at least 5 department stores where you can find anything you want. For sure when you go there you don't feel in a tourist place as you are likely one of the few foreigners who dares to go there and on top there are price tags, so no bargaining here.
3- Western type shopping mall like The Village or Solana. These are brand new shopping malls, so new that some of the shops have not opened yet. In there you can find most of the Western brands at a consequent price.
4- Little shops on the street where you're not sure if you should enter as it's not clear how big is the place, there are no price tags and only Chinese is spoken.
Now assuming you find something that suits your European tastes (and that's the biggest challenge for me) and that it's affordable, it is very unlikely that you will find your size as you are probably too tall for Chinese standards :(

Weekly Chinese massage

Last night I went to get my now weekly Chinese massage. I usually explain somehow that my back hurts and that it requires special attention. As a consequence the 60min of body massage become 45min on the back and 15min for the rest of the body. And let's face it, those 45min are closer to torture than to relaxation. When she applies her fingers with a strength you cannot explain when looking at the little Chinese girl on the areas where it hurts or on your neck or when she uses her elbow to stretch, I sometimes wonder if next time I shouldn't go for the aromatherapy massage, and have the full hour to relax. But the following days when I feel the benefit of it, I cannot help going back :) I guess my physiotherapist was right when she was repeating to me "a little pain now for a lot less pain later"...

Sunset over cloudy Beijing

Saint Nicolas / Sinterklaas

Joyeuse Saint Nicolas / Gelukkig Sinterklaas to all of you and your family!

PS: Enjoy the chocolate, speculoos and other treats for me :)

Give me one good reason to go outside...

because it looks like it's not getting warmer. Even the temperature in the apartment is dropping (17C this morning when I woke up - time to re-active the electrical heater they gave me some time back).

Winter is here

Winter has arrived. Temperatures are now closer to zero even negative today. Add the wind on top and you freeze right there. Even though the sun is shining, if you stand outside you'll feel the cold up to your bones. Brrr...
Makes you want to stay home drinking hot chocolate :)

Chinese numbers

Today I had my 2nd lesson of Chinese and the teacher decided to teach me the numbers. Before getting to the actual Chinese words for each number, I had to learn the hand signs for 1 to 10. As you can see, when you see Chinese people doing a gesture like they want to shoot you, they actually mean 8. I don't know why but I get the feeling it's not going to be that easy...

Now higher numbers get even better. Let me give you some examples:

- for 15 you say ten-five

- for 20 you say two-ten

- for 110 you say one-hundred-one-ten

- for 105 you say one-hundred-zero-five

- and my favourite 1111: one-thousand-one-hundred-one-ten-one

In a way it's simple because you dón't need to learn new words, just put the numbers one after the other, now it's very counter-intuitive when you're used to another system.