Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to sound like one of those expats who consider themselves as being better than locals (even though they are more often just paternalistic pricks) while in the end we are just lucky migrants. Trust me, I make as much fun of the ridiculous tattoos of chinese characters that foreigners seem to have a love affair with…

But here is a list of some of the best names I or my friends have come along over the years:

Benz - Acer – Knight – Princess – Handsome – Monster – Stone – Sunshine – Kool – Power Magic – Wonder – Rambo – Rainbow – Jam – Deniel (yes with an e) – King – Joy – Milk… and the list is endless…

23rd March: An excellent addition to the list, one of the trainer at my gym is named: Zizi… which in french means: dick!

1st of April: the names of the weekend: Jaso (yes no N at the end) – Fish

I’m also surprised that there are not more ridiculous american-gangsta-rapper style names in the list… Snoop Lion…. and the likes…

Thomas

Ceci étant dit, la récolte 2013 n’est pas un grand cru, je n’ai vu ou reçu que 2 messages qui valent vraiment la peine d’être publiés ici:

“Ding dong… l’embarquement du vol 2013 est annoncé ! Vos escales : chance, santé, bonheur… La durée du vol sera de 12 mois… Veuillez vous présenter porte 31 à minuit… Je vous souhaite un agréable voyage… Bonne année à tous.”

Franchement, parfois, un bon vieux “Bonne Année.” fait vraiment l’affaire! Souvenez-vous que la simplicité est la vraie élégance

But wait a minute, did I say we??? Yes, I did. I’m not alone anymore and it’s not a secret for most of you… A while ago, I met a wonderful girl, named Lida, who charmed me in no time and these days we share most of our time together. And it cannot be any better.

That trip to Beijing was our first weekend outside of Beijing together, so we both had great expectations. And we were not disappointed. I had already spent a tiring day of meetings with clients in Beijing before Lida joined us. I was almost too late at the airport to pick her up as I was having dinner with one of my staff that had accompanied me to the meetings (You have to try Modo in Sanlitun, simple affordable european food and very yummy too!).

Lida and I were staying in a very authentic hotel called Hotel Côté Cour. It’s a traditional house in a hutong in Beijing. I loved it very much since they mix modern and traditional design which is always a win with me. I spend my time traveling and often stays in major hotel chains, so when I travel on my own, I typically stay away from those and stay at boutique hotels. Hotel Cote Cour is one of them. The staff and rooms were perfect, and I’m pretty sure we will stay there again next time we are in Beijing.

Our big plan for the weekend was to go to the Great Wall as Lida had never been before! Yes, I have to show China to my chinese girlfriend! can you believe it! In any case, the Great Wall is such a stunning sight that going there for the 3rd time wasn’t a problem at all.

But it was even better since two friends of Lida, Lisa and Joe, were joining us for the trip and taking us there in their car. Funny enough, we learnt a few days ago that they were getting married. We were super happy for them!

Joe and Lisa, the happy future couple at Da Dong Restaurant!

We had to meet with them right before lunch so Lida and I had time to shop around in the morning. It was a bright and sunny day, but the temperatures were well below zero. So I had no choice but to buy leggings to wear under my jeans. Yes, leggings.

I did not regret those, even during the sporty climb to get on the wall I was freezing! The view was stunning as usual. And especially on this beautiful day. We did not stay too long however, since it was so cold. We were glad to be back in the warmth of the car.

Joe and Lisa took us to dinner to DaDong, which luckily was my favourite place for Beijing Duck! So yummy! We ended up in a bar in the Nan luo Gu Xiang area called Bed where you litteraly lounge on… beds. They were serving an excellent old-fashioned, so I was probably the most tipsy of all…

Drinking in bed at Bed…

The second day was more relaxed for us, we slept late to catch up the sleep we did get the past 3 weeks that were pretty intense in working and partying (most notably the week of my birthday that started with a 4am in beds after heavy drinking…). On the menu that day: shopping and walking around in Nan Luo Gu Xiang and HouHai !

I have never been a big fan of Beijing and I believe I will never be. I’m a Shnaghai Ren after all, but this time I must say that I truely enjoyed my stop in Beijing. Enough to say, that I wouldn’t mind going back!

More traveling to come with Lida soon, we are thinking of going even further north, to the Harbin snow and ice festival or for a ski trip somewhere in China… And then, a trip to Malaysia for Chinese New Year!

Stay tuned!

Cheers

Thomas

A group of friends also joined us. Actually, 2 couples from Belgium, Laura and Etienne, and Xavier and Florence. And I also had the visit of another close friend from Shanghai, Margarita. She is also my lawyer and her business took her to Los Angeles (we also met at the airport since our flights, one from Shanghai and the other one from Guangzhou, arrived more or less at the same time, yes, I know, so jet set.. ) so she decided to come over to Florida for 3 days.

It was really great to be surrounded by friends for a week. The sun was shining everyday, so the mood was right. We of course visited the Theme Parks: we had a blast at Universal Studios, where we did only the thrilling rides, I almost wet my pants on the Hulk.. see this picture:

The Hulk at Universal Studios

But the girls of course wanted to go the the fairy wonderland of the Disney Magic Kingdom... while the boys wanted to go to the other Universal park for more thrills…. Well guess what, I’m “such a nice guy” that I decided to give the girl a ride and accompany them to Wonderland! but in the end it was a lot of fun… however, I was quite tired, I guess the 13hours jetlag and waking up at 6am everyday to catch up on work did not really help… but I manage to get an excellent nap for an hour in Disney

Another exciting things for the boys: Visiting the Cape Canaveral Nasa center: awesome experience to see real size rockets and learn more about lunar programs… We also went to a basketball game: go Magics go! I just love the atmosphere of american sports.

The rest of the week was more dedicated to shopping at the numerous outlets in Orlando and chilling by the pool…

Another interesting thing: on my way back to Shanghai, I was in transit in LA and I bumped into a friend from Shanghai on his way to Chicago for a training at Kellogg. Like they say in Disney, it’s a small small world…

Here’s a video I made after the holidays, the shootings were made using the Go Pro Hero that my friend gave me to thank me: I just love it!

Enjoy!

Thomas

My god, the stewardesses surely had forgotten about how to provide quality service to their customers… I barely had a smile during the 4 flights I took, and even worse, they complained openly about Chinese people in the plane to westerners… Ok they might not be the easiest one, especially those who travel in large groups, but they surely deserve the same respect as any other people on the plane.

The best part was on the way back: I had caught a cold and was obviously not feeling well (fever and sneezing all the time), right before take off I asked one of the stewardess if I could get a tissue: her answer blew me away: “I don’t have any, go get one in the restrooms”!

Thank you AA, you won’t get my $$$ anymore.

Thomas

Like during any public holiday in China, it is the opportunity for literally millions of people to travel. Either migrant workers go back to their hometown or , and it is a rapidly growing trend, middle class families travel to discover either their gigantic homeland or for the lucky ones, oversea countries.

When I say millions of people traveling I really mean it, have a look at a few examples of major chinese touristic destinations absolutely packed during this holiday:

So now you understand why I don’t want to stay in China during those holidays! There is NO WAY I will ever travel within China in those conditions. So this year I decided to go to Thailand… A country I had already visited many times for business (we open a Belgian Beer Café in Phuket in December) or as a tourist, with my buddies starting back in 2008 if I remember properly.

This time however, not much backpacking but rather a relaxing holiday with only 2 major destinations. In the end, I was only away for a bit more than a week!

It did not start pretty well this time. I had to run for my plane in Shanghai, which in the end was delayed (I was transiting in Hong Kong, not a smart choice). It meant then that I had to run like crazy through the airport in HK to make it to my connecting flight to Bangkok, and they closed the door behind my back… I made it, but my bag did not….  Not nice. Not nice at all. I was actually sleeping at the airport hotel to get to Krabi with the first flight the day after… so I couldn’t get my bag on time for this flight.  So I had to travel to Koh Phi Phi, in jeans, smart shirt, jacket, and fancy shoes, while all the people around me were backpackers in flip flops and shorts… Not nice at all!!! My bag made it the day after. Still, 2 big thumbs up to Thai airways for their quality service… Well being a frequent traveller with Star Alliance surely helped, but still.

So, step 1: Koh Phi Phi: PARADISE on earth. A picture is worth a thousand words.

What did I do? Nothing! I just took naps, dips in the blue sea waters, and… oh yeah more naps. I also took the opportunity to dive. It had been a while since my last dive in Brazil in 2009, so I had to go through a refresh course… but the folks at Adventure Dive surely made it a lot of fun… Among others, I saw turtles and reef sharks… I loved the turtles! The most interesting was to do a night dive to prepare for my Advanced Padi certification. It’s not really “natural” to get in the water when you can’t see anything… and it can be quite scary at times… So I really had to work on my inner peace to stay calm J

But it was worth it… even though we were not very lucky to see much creatures (I was hoping for giant octopuses) it certainly is a different dive experience. The underwater world is completely different: you don’t see the same fishes, corals, etc.. the reefs are all fluffy for instance. I will surely do it again!

Step 2: Chang Mai! A very laid back city in the north of Thailand. I was in Northern Thailand only once 2 years ago to cross the border to Laos in the Chiang Rai area, but this time I could sample more of the local culture. And there is a lot of it in this city. But to be honest, I’m done with temples for the rest of my life…. I’ve seen so many over the years that I’m literally not interested at all in them anymore, and Chiang Mai has hundreds of them.

I decided to simply wander the streets and take it easy will I was there. And I surely don’t regret it. The atmosphere is just great. One thing I enjoyed a lot was a private bike tour with a local tour guide who took me in the countryside for a whole day (my ass still hurts because of the bad saddle J ). Another high of my stay was a cooking class at a local organic farm. I met interesting people from the UK and from Oregon (check their blog at www.twooregonians.com) and learnt to make my own curry (massaman, green or red).

I then stayed for a night in Bangkok for business, and stayed in a very nice hotel that I recommend: Muse, from the boutique series of Accord Group.

I love Thai people and Thai food! and i’m glad I will go back soon for the opening of the Belgian Beer Café in Phuket.

Stay curious people!

Thomas

The Provinces of China - Xinjiang in the North West

It was quite a long journey to get there… First, I had to take a 5 hours flight to Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. Nothing much to say about the flight, old plane, bad food, … just the usual “standards” of the Chinese airline industry. At least, I was upgraded to Premium Economy, so I had more leg space… But still, what I could see from the window was very nice, empty lands, snowy mountains… very cool.

Our first stop on this journey was Urumqi, but we only stayed one night there and had a good time catching up over a few beers and local food (mostly barbecued meat, yummy!).

For traveling in Xinjiang, you have two options: either you go on your own, or you join one of those group tours that take you from places to places… Taking the advice from friend and mentor Marc van der Chijs, on his blog www.marc.cn, I decided that it might be too expensive to use the private car option… Even if I can drive in China (it’s super easy for Belgians to get their driving license in China, see more info here), my friend simply cannot drive, he has never learnt to! So it would have meant that I would have had to drive for looooong hours on my own, not exactly something to look forward to on a 4 days trip.

The group in itself was already an experience, noisy, noisy and even more noisy! But however, we met a few interesting people, especially a 20 something girl from Changsha who spoke perfect English as she was studying in Hong Kong. Her parents were also particularly nice, a banking exec and an engineer.

But traveling for long hours on a bus was great in the end because Ken and I hadn’t seen each other for a while so we could catch up and share quite a few good stories and laughs!

One first thing that surprised me in Xinjiang, was to see so many cotton fields just outside of Urumqi, on the way to Kalamayi. Those fields were soon followed by other ones: oil fields! And I mean… endless oil fields… I had seen this before while I was traveling in Iraq… euh no in Texas sorry, but surely not as big! The first day of bus was very long, 11 hours, but we ended the day very nicely, by watching the sunset at Wu Cai Tang; where sandy hills have various colors by a stretch of riverside forest, a true wonder to watch!

We ended up the night in the city of Bo Er Jing, whose architecture remotely reminded of Russia ! A few beers and a warm bowl of noodles, and we were off to bed since we had to wake up at 5am the day after. The next day, after a short drive of 3 hours, and a complete change of scenery, from deserted hills to mountains covered by trees, we arrived at the entrance of the Kanas Lake National Park, which was the “piece de resistance” of our trip. We were than as much north as we could go in this trip or almost even in China, We were in a very short strip of land between Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan there.

Mongolia to the East, Kazakhstan to the West and Russia to the North...

And in terms of timing, it was excellent, since Autumn has taken its beautiful colors to trees around the area. Kanas lake is a long stretch of Water, that is not so wide. Like any other touristic destination in China, it’s very well (too?) developed. And everything is made easy f or you to tour around and find your way. For instance, a wooden path had been constructed all around the lake to allow for easy walks… Those with weak ankles like me can appreciate those kind of things. However, the “highlight” for many chinese tourists is a boat tour on the lake, since we were booked for it, we went along, and this was a BAAAAAAAD idea. At least for me: I dropped by phone in that lake!!!!! That really made this lake a bitter sweet memory… but in the end, it was just a phone!

Autumn Colors on Kanas Lake

In the afternoon, our group was supposed to go near the Kazakhstan border, but for whatever reason, this area was forbidden to foreigners. Therefore Ken and I were offered a much welcome break from our tourist fellows! We had the opportunity to walk around the lake and enjoy a nap in the woods under a nice shining autumn sun. We then took and long and let’s say energetic walk! It was awesome and very relaxing. It somehow reminded me of the area I grew up, in Estrie, in Canada. As a kid, my parents used to take my sister and I on endless walks in the forests and around lakes around our house in Magog. Good memories.

The second day was quite different and the sun had decided to stay in bed that day… It got also a lot colder, we even had snow on top of certain mountains we had to pass by. The highlight of the day was a stop in He Mu, a traditional Tua minority village. It could have been nice, but the endless arrivals of buses filled with Chinese tourists made it a bit less attractive to me.

However, Ken and I skipped the group lunch to find our own food (which we did for most of meals) and ended up touring around the village on our own which was more fun! We spent some time with villagers who were butchering a cow! I had never seen this and it was a … bloody experience! Nothing special to end the day, a lot of beautiful sceneries and another beautiful sunset. One thing that is worth to mention: the food we had that night: we had a local specialty called Da Pan Ji, a chicken dish with potatoes, tomatoes and peppers, which turned out to be delicious. On top of that we had some of the best wild mushrooms I probably will ever had! Xinjiang food can be very attractive! The last day, was dedicated to a loooong drive back to Urumqi but this time with more frequent stops and a nicer weather that allowed us to enjoy stunning views.

One last night in Urumqi with a good chinese friend, definitely involves drinking and Karaoké! A great night! The day after, it was time for us to sadly part and head back to Shanghai for me! I will keep good memories of Xinjiang, and I definitely want to go back. But recent events will probably have an influence on that… who knows!

Take care you all and stay curious, and explore the world you’re living in!

Thomas