cacou

Spring is knocking at the door...definitely! Today, we went on our bikes and had a great ride to 'Jingshan Park', an artificial hill made with soil from the digging of lakes and the Forbidden City moats. At the top, there is a traditional Chinese style pagoda and lots of 'dusty' cyprus trees. It was the perfect day to go up there (100 meters high). Here are some pictures and a video of Beijing skylines 360° round anticlockwise...it'll give you an idea of what Beijing looks like! Hope spring is coming where you are...... read more

Have a good look at these sign boards...if you have some better translation, go ahead! Have fun... read more

Hello family, friends and blog readers of the world, Apologies first: it has been almost…7 months (hum) since my last note on my blog, but we are still here in Beijing and doing well. Last summer in France, we celebrated my inlaws 50th wedding anniversary with brothers, sisters and cousins. On the warmest day of the summer, the 5th of August 07, we went to the 'Château de Codignat' a castle near Courpière and enjoyed great surroundings and especially good french food. Beautiful landscapes, great pure air, Saint Nectaire, tarte aux myrtilles, freshly picked mushrooms did the rest and we were ready for a new year in Beijing! (let's be positive!) September came and a new school year for kids. Still at the 'Lycée Français International de Pékin', Marie doing her 2nd year of Junior High ... read more

XMAS 2006 Christmas holidays are far away behind us and kids have been on holiday again since, but let me tell you first about our nice and quiet end of the year. My mother came and we rediscovered together a few places we visited 18 years ago when we were backpacking together around China. See the picture of Beijing Central Railway Station on a snowy morning…one place that has not changed much really! 18 years ago, we hated it out here in China. We thought: what rude and noisy people!!!!... even the food was terrible !!! Nothing like chinese food we used to have in the west... But I see things very differently now and my mother agrees with me... I can now say basic sentences in chinese, I understand how the language works. I can ... read more

We have survived one month in Beijing, so we should be able to survive for long... Biggest problem so far was to find a 4 bedroom flat, which are much more expensive than 3 bdr flats and fewer. So, as the girls do not wish to share a room any longer, we had to make all sorts of compromises (far from school, close to park, in busy aera, on 25th floor!!! etc)...in the end, we are going to live in a new tower block, called 'Windsor Avenue'! Nothing to do with her majesty's hangout but very nice...and our flat is 'only' (thanks god!) on the 2nd floor (so we don't feel like rabbits in a cage!). It is 340 Sqm, huge for Beijing and for many places on the planet probably! The kids each have a ... read more