30 Already...

Yes, it’s official. I am 30 years old already. What can I say? I spent my thirtieth birthday at working on my photos on my computer and at teaching English. I celebrated with 2 big bottles of beer and a king of Haagen-Dazs Popsicle once again in front of my computer. We could say that it’s part of the other side of the coin. Fear not! I am not putting this here to attract pity, nor a deluge of happy birthdays. It’s only for the record. Besides not only I think it’s safe

to say that I somewhat had coming but nothing would have stopped me from going out alone and embarked on an all nighter bender which could have probably happen with a minimum of good will. The fact of the matter is that I had things to do. That being said, I’m no longer in my twenties (not in body, that is...).

So what was I so busy doing? Well apart from finalizing Key Consulting’s studio portraits, and the souvenir calendar of the Great Wall, I had an important meeting with Reuters’ China chief photographer to prepare for the next day. I thus had to work a bit on my port-folio. It turned out to be a bit of a mission just to find their office and to get there. Apparently, it’s that way somewhat on purpose.

To summarise it, I had a rendezvous but I did not know exactly where nor did I have a phone number to call at. So after a few Google searches I found a building name and even an address. However, in such a big city, an address alone doesn’t help you that much (Beijing is not on Google map...) A few supplementary searches and I found another business with the same address. I called them and the receptionist transferred me to Paggy who spoke good English. I politely explained her the situation and she accepted to give me her cell phone number. Then all I had to do once I got in a taxi was to call her and pass my phone to the driver. There’s a neat little trick that saved me on several occasions. Once arrived and ready, the elevator doors open. The whole floor was undergoing intense renovations. They had obviously moved out a while back. Miraculously, at the same time, Paggy text messaged me to make sure I was alright. Quite generous with her time, she then researched herself Reuters address and phone number through the building’s management office. She wrote it all, in Chinese of course, on a piece of paper that I simple had to pass over to the next taxi driver. He of course dropped me off at the wrong place but after having found another helpful receptionist to pass my phone over to, I managed to reach my destination.

When I got up this morning, I was treated with a nice little surprised, our very first snow. I had a Mandarin class so I unfortunately did not have time to take very many photos of the event. Once my class was over it was all gone. Speaking of Mandarin, the progress is very slow but it’s there nonetheless. My pronunciation as supposedly somewhat improved and I can recognise about 15 – 20 characters which is nothing. To be able to read the news paper correctly, you need to know about 3000. Patience I must keep going.