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Published: July 20th 2007
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Hello again! For those who are wondering why I have not written for a long long time, be at peace: life goes too fast out here, the end of the school year is always very busy for mums!
The building in the construction site right in front of our windows will be finished in a flash…14 floors above the ground, 5 under, and I will still be trying to finish this page!!!
Anyway, we went to Hong Kong (HK) for a short break for May 1rst holiday. We liked it a lot. We chose to stay, not in the crowed town of HK, but in what they call 'the Green HK': with no less than 200 islands, HK has a lot of nature spots, lots of hiking tracks and beaches.
We stayed on Lantau island, between the sea and a range of tropical mountains, in a small hotel right on the beach, in Silvermine Bay (there used to be silver mines in the surrounding hills)…Well, ok, the beach was not very clean (but after all, we are used to Diani Beach on the Kenyan Indian Ocean coast, so of course, it is difficult to match that….!), but
there were millions of sea shells and a swimming pool in the hotel, so kids had a great time. An old man was flying his kites on the beach everyday; Léo made friends with him and got to do it too. And a 30 minute boat ride took us to the famous HK Island and Know loon. Kids were not impressed by HK skyline, they miss the countryside too much (especially Marie and Léo), they wanted to go back to our quiet beach! But we managed to convince them that this city had something to offer! Personally, I would like to live in HK: the idea of busy life during the week and green HK for the week-ends is quite appealing to me! The problem with Beijing is that it is difficult to escape from the city for a day or two on your own, impossible to find your way on your own, worse even if you don't have a car of your own and a 'good' driver. Country side places are always too far away and difficult to reach. Anyway, HK was fun for kids also with 'Ocean Park', a theme park with a huge aquarium and lots to
do around the sea. Kids had a good rest in HK away from the cameras: no Chinese here was trying to take pictures of them…
May and June was suddenly hot, hotter and hotter every day, with really high levels of pollution. The end of the school year was full of surprises with school shows and trips. Leila, her class mates (and I) went on a trip to the mountainous countryside: Xiang Tun, 2 hour drive north of Beijing.
Kids slept on a Kang (traditional Chinese bedding, very hard, heated in the winter) and enjoyed lunch under the chestnut trees and diners under the stars, which does not happen in Beijing…Beautiful surroundings, quiet river but litter everywhere left there by week-end tourists, too bad!
I was very happy to see a real old traditional house, still standing, with its paper windows and front courtyard. And of course, more bits and pieces of the great wall…they are all over the place!
Early July, my mother arrived in Beijing, her second visit. We went on four night trip to Beidaihe, 200 kms east of Beijing, on the Bohai Sea. I book a hotel and ask my lovely
Chinese teacher to book some comfortable seats on a fast train (not that easy to do, believe me!). Maybe I should have asked her to book the hotel also!!! Here is the description of the hotel on the internet: 'B. HOTEL sets up in intellectual circles of getting up in the giant hotel institute, the sea beach location of China of summer resort district on the seashore.' You don't understand? Well, I did not either (good example of what an automatic translator software can do!!!), but I don't know why, I was inspired…and wrong (once again, yes, you can say it!… anyway, we enjoyed a purer air and the beach.
There is also a lot to see for a foreigner: Chinese people wearing long sleeves and swimming caps but who can't swim, and Russian showing as much white skin as possible, getting red by the second…In Beidaihe, if you don't speak Chinese, you'd better speak Russian…all the sign boards and restaurant menus are in Chinese and Russian…some in English, but beware, the translation is not always appropriate: we ordered some 'mixed fried vegetables' and got…a onion omelette!!! But it was very 'hao che' (tasty, in Chinese).
Now we
are off to France for the rest of the summer, happy to be in our house again and meet with family and friends…won't miss Beijing air, that is for sure!!!!!
Bye for now, to all our friends around the world: have a great summer break!
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