Christmas in the sun

Decided to spend Christmas in the sun this year, so off to the Malaysian island of Langkawi for the holiday week. Rebecca and Claire flew out from London and we met up at the spectacular Tangjun Rhu resort, on the northern tip of the island, overlooking the Andaman Sea. Malaysia has been battered by heavy thunderstorms and floods over the last few weeks which have caused significant damage across parts of the country, so we weren't expecting good weather, but luckily the skies were blue and clear and the temperature in the high-20s.

It felt a little weird to spend the Christmas holidays lying on the beach drinking mango juice and catching the rays instead of chasing round the shops buying presents and stocking up on provisions....but, somehow, we coped.




We spent the week reading, sleeping late, relaxing and eating good food. Just what we needed after a very busy & tiring year and a welcome escape from the Beijing winter winds that begun in earnest at the beginning of the month.

Christmas in China is, not surprisingly, a muted affair. Mostly its ignored but some places get into the decorating spirit big time - like my office building which really got carried away with a massive tree, lights - the works. What's all that about?

And this department store Santa...what did the kids make of him? Who do they think he is?

Dad & Mum pay a visit

And enjoy some of the highlights of Beijing - a Sunday walk in the park for some Tai Chi and a sing-a-long with the locals; a pedicure; the Great Wall and, of course, some Da Dong famous Beijing roast duck.

View from my window..first snow

Woke to grey, dull, Monday morning in Beijing to see the first snow of the season fall. Traffic snarled up and everyone late into the office. Makes you feel right at home.


















Today's paper said that Beijing's population had reached 17.5M.

The local government is building new subway lines, criss-crossing the city, as fast as they can. The north-south number 5 line opened last month and ticket prices were reduced by a third to 2RMB (0.20 euro cents) for a single journey anywhere on the network, to encourage greater usage.



But the Beijingers love for the car runs deep with more than 1,000 new cars sold every day. It's amazing that anyone makes it into work at all.

Rice-lifting. An Olympic sport for 2012?

It keeps you fit; it keeps you healthy

and you save all of those horrendous gym fees...

A walk in Chao Yang park

As part of the Festival of Australian Theatre in China, we go for a long walk in Chao Yang park to see the Melbourne based Strange Fruits 'SynchoSwing' - basically an air ballet come synchronised swim atop 4 meter bendy poles. It's a lot better than it sounds.

Experience it yourself. And more.

Taming of the Shrew

I never win anything. But, last Friday I won a pair tickets for TNT's production of Taming of the Shrew at the Peking University Hall. TNT is an international touring company and this production was terrific. The talented six person cast take on multiple roles, sing the original score and even change the simple scenery themselves.


It was a lot of fun and this huge auditorium belonging to the Beijing University was packed out. The audience loved it and, even though a translation was provided at the side of the stage, clearly had an excellent command of English cheering, clapping and laughing at this faced paced play.


But theatre-going in Beijing has its little quirks. Especially when it comes to finding your seat. Seats are numbered from the centre of the row with even numbered seats going out to the right and odd numbered seats going to the left. And the numbers are on the back of seats and each row doesn't line up with the row in front. What's all that about? Actually, this is less of a problem than you might think since many Chinese believe in sitting in the best empty seat they can find regardless of who it belongs to. So when you do find your seat, someone else is often in it. They move on graciously to the next best one they can find and so on. This bizarre seating ritual continues until - in a sold-out show like this one - everyone is finally sitting in the correct seat - generally by the interval.

The sincerest form of flattery

I remember when touch tone dialing first came out in the US, AT&T published a list of all the tones that controlled the system. Kids with perfect pitch could whistle down the phone lines to make free calls...

Our friend Peter Gottlieb does a perfect imitation of the ring tone of a '70s Trimphone. Takes me back to my youth whenever he does it. Unfortunately, not too much demand for that skill these days, I guess.