Huh?....

China Daily June 20th, 2007

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 'abreaction' is the expression and emotional discharge of unconscious material (as a repressed idea or emotion) by verbalization especially in the presence of a therapist.


Maybe they just wanted a beer.

Candian Chamber of Commerce 2007 Annual Ball

You have to try these things once.
And, after all, it was for a good cause
Dennis, Tac & Maple Leaf

No shortage of fab gifts for the attendees

Rebs & Sam in Beijing

May golden week brought a visit from Rebecca and Sam, who came to stay, prior to joining their Intrepid China tour.

We had beautiful warm weather that week which, along with mostly blue sky days, provided a perfect setting for us to show them our life in Beijing and introduce them to some of our favourite places.

As always in Beijing, eating out was high on the list of important things to do and we mixed old favourites with new finds. Din Tai Fung, the Taiwanese dumplings specialist, is definitely one of our favourites. A 5 minute walk from our apartment, this sleek and efficiently run restaurant serves delicate, delicious dumplings with paper-thin skins that ooze juice when you bite into them. How do they do that?

Beijing Da Dong is probably one of the best duck restaurants in town and their low fat Beijing duck is a delight (just ignore the sinister looking sea cucumbers proudly displayed on plates in the lobby). We go to the original restaurant on the 3rd Ring Road. We enjoyed the luxury of a private dining room and watched with mounting anticipation as our waitress dexterously made up delicious duck pancakes for us with her chopsticks.

Less impressive was the shishi Green T. House. I knew it was going to be too clever for its own good as soon as we arrived at the massive, closed, front door and had to be buzzed in. The primary seating consists of one huge table that all diners sit at, with wooden chairs whose solid backs were more than 2m high. The waiters’ faces peeped in between the chair backs as they lit the menus with their torches and brought their over-engineered dishes to the table. The food was good but I expected Jeremy Beadle to jump out at any moment announcing that we had been the victims of an expensive, elaborate hoax. Actually, I think we were.

Our excursions included a boat ride on Houhai Lake – I steered, Tac was brave; a picnic at the Summer Palace – not the place to be during Golden Week as we fought our way through the tens of thousands of people who also thought it would be a fun place to go; and a leisurely stroll through Ritan Park. Beijingers love their parks and Ritan is always a hive of activity with people fishing, flying kites, exercising, playing table tennis or climbing the rock wall.

Somewhere along the way, we discovered ‘Swing’ – a small Sanlitun bar with an excellent Filipino house band whose repertoire of classic rock numbers had everyone on their feet. Though, YMCA was definitely the signal to move on.

Of course, we also found time for some retail therapy. Tac impressed us all with her steely negotiating skills in Yashou market and Sam even managed to get a pair of his favourite, but worn out, trousers copied and made up by Jonny the tailor.

We left them – sadly - at the end of a terrific week as they joined up with their tour group for the official tour of Beijing‘s sites and then on to Xi’an and places south.

Just another day at the Summer Palace

Bar top dancing at 'Swing'

A little bit of England in Beijing

To the residence of the British Ambassador to China last Saturday for a picnic on the lawn and an evening of Madrigals sung by the International Festival Chamber Choir .



The choir is not-for-profit organisation made up of volunteer Beijing-based singers from 23 countries. Concert proceeds went to The Light & Love School - a Beijing school providing education and care for orphaned, poor, disabled and single parent migrant children.

The evening was balmy, the food was good and the music relaxed and highly enjoyable. Memories of Kew Gardens summer jazz, but everyone was better behaved.

Nespresso hits town, but at a price..

Excitedly headed over to the new, swish, Shin Kong Place department store & mall over the weekend to check out the Nespresso store that has just opened up there.

Our machine is back in London and the thought of making those delicious espressos in the comfort of our Beijing apartment got me down there in a flash.

My hopes were quickly dashed, however, when the sales assistant - speaking flawless English learnt during 4 years of university studies in the UK - told me the prices. More than twice the UK price for the machines and 50% more for the coffee capsules.

I didn't think anything cost more than in London...and somehow I couldn't get myself to shell out. Apparently, it's the high import duty charged by the Chinese government that has pushed this machine out of my reach. At least for the time being - but for how long will I be able to resist?

Shin Kong Place is a monument to Chinese consumer aspirations. Or at least to the aspirations of the hundreds of foreign luxury goods brands that are desperate to get their hands on China's new found wealth. Its a mammoth granite and marble shopping complex on par with the best of London, Paris or Milan.

Many of the brands with goods on sale in Shin Kong Place have had their products diligently copied and sold over the years a few miles down the road at the Silk Market. Now they hope to convince Chinese consumers to pay $1,500 for a real Boss suit instead of 1/100th of that for a tailor-made lookalike. But what is real? Most of these goods are made in China anyway.

Abandoning the closed membership

It's nice to think that you can restrict access to your blog to your friends but it's a drag to administer and doesn't allow use of feeds or other notification methods to inform of new content.

So as of today, beijingblog goes public - so you can now set up RSS and Atom feeds to access the content.