Making Friends

Well this past week could be simply resumed by the meeting of many new and interesting people from a bit of everywhere. Thanks to Stefanie, who introduced me to many of her groups of friends, I went to a few parties and meetings where I was able to make many new acquaintances, foreigner for the most part but also Chinese as well. I also made a few more meetings “on my own” like this couple from Hong Kong who happened to speak great French. The man first came to my rescue as I was trying to order my meal, which is not necessarily always an easy thing to do, even when the menu is full of pictures of indescribable and mysterious things that still look good none the less. They then invited me to join them for a few glasses of that rather strong white liquor that I could not name. It truly was a pleasure to chat with them.


By walking in the streets you get the impressions that there are relatively few westerners. Although that is probable the case, there seem to be a good network of ”expats” (expatriated) as they are called here, and probably elsewhere as well. There are even many restaurants, shop, and cafes that are especially aimed at them and where they can find a wide range of meals from abroad, anything from Taiwanese food to pizza. I even hear that you can find poutine at one of those hip cafes/restos. Poutine! Of course, I promised myself that I was going to try it and give a detailed review about it. Evidently the prices in these places are also “adapted” to foreigners and are thus very comparable to what you could in Canada for example. That contrasts with the local food which is more than affordable. That is fine by me since I did not come all this way to stuff myself on hamburgers with fries.


Besides all that, I took the rest of my time to decide what I was going to do here, the procedure on how to do it, and of course to take some photos here and there. Thus if all goes well I should receive my working visa sometime next month. It is quite expensive but at least with that I will be “ensured” to be able to stay here a whole year, which means through the Olympics, and be able to work in all legality.

On that, I leave you with some of the photos of the week until next time.

A child peacefully sleeping on a wodden board while his parents are playing chinese chess.


The extremely rich in their crystal towers have a superb view over the city.

This spider must have been at least, with it's legs streched out, the size of a hockey poc. Its abdomen was about then lenght of a quater and a diameter of a dime. A huge thing but Oh so beautiful with all its bright colors.

A man seemingly net fishing in extreme polluted waters. Almost as courageous an enterprise than eating the actual fish.

A Good Start

A few of you (to not say my parents ;-p) have somewhat complained that I was taking too much time before adding a new post. My apologies to those but at first I wanted to actually have something to tell and then I got too busy. On the other hand, I feel that 1 post a week is a good pace. I would not want to loose you over boring details...

That being said, what have I been doing during this first week? Well I evidently wandered around a lot in poor neighbourhoods as well as in ultra modern shopping areas. I think it’s safe to say that Beijing is a city of extremes. It’s relatively clean I would say, especially when considering its gigantism. One thing is for sure, it’s exploding at an alarming pace with its huge construction and renovation projects at every street corner. It almost seen like the air has as certain concrete aroma. It’s not the only thing it’s got, it also have a color. Here you see what you breathe, on certain days anyway. The smog can be quite hallucinating.

Just about everybody asks me what do I eat and other food related questions. Well although I did see sea horses and snakes on sticks, I have not been that adventurous just yet. For now I kept myself on soups, stir fries of some sorts and other similar concoctions. Although I try to keep away from them, McDonald’s, KFCs and Pizza Huts are legions. Thus as far as food is concerned, it’s so far so good.

I would say that the highlight of the week is Stefanie, a “couch surfer” originating from a bit of everywhere in the world and who is already comfortably installed here in Beijing. "Couch Surfers" is a network of travellers who offer and seek couches to sleep on while travelling. For more information check out (www. couchsurfing.com ). She is extremely generous and is temporarily housing me for a few days. So right now I bathe in luxury. I’m in one of the huge and brand new 36 stories tall habitation complexes that are sprouting all over like mushrooms.

She takes me around to visit and helps me in general with her good advices. I started taking public transport including taxis. They are relatively cheap. The bus is virtually free (about 0.06$) but rather elaborated. So the adaptation is going well, almost too well in fact. I don’t want to loose that feeling of perpetual amazement too quickly.

To my great surprise, I also already found myself a bit of work. In fact, I’m starting today a weekly 2 hours English teaching session in a children class whom I have not met yet. I also started yesterday a part time French correction job for a cell phone company. I’m also in the midst of negotiation for 1 or 2 photography related jobs. All in all, a rather good start.

Here we Go!

Greetings my friends!


Here it is! The very beginning of my very first blog. It’s a good way to easily collect my diaries and make them available to all without annoying those who could not care less with lengthy mass mails. You are most welcome to leave me your comments and such.

So here we go. After getting up in the middle of the night, heart braking goodbyes, and a few hours of waiting, I was on a plane to New York. We took off at around 9h50 AM and I slept most of the 2 hrs long flight.

Since it was the 6th anniversary of 9/11, right to the minute, I was expecting a semi-military presence and never ending line ups which was not the case. To the contrary, it all went surprisingly fast and smoothly. Thus I had several hours to kill before my next flight scheduled at 16h30. Fortunately, I had the privilege of the company of and another young Quebecois in a quest for adventures in Bangkok.

The Air China’s Boeing 747 took off at around 18h15. I was one of the very rare white people on board. The Chinese man sitting next to me happened to speak relatively good English so we chatted a bit in between naps, meals and movies.

A few interesting figures of the flight CA982 from New York to Beijing for those whom it interests.


- Distance: Just over 10 000 km

- Average altitude: Almost 10 000 m.

- Time of flight: 13 ½ hrs.

- Ground speed: Approximately 900 km/h


Another interesting fact, we took a direction I had not expected. We flew right over the North Pole. When I realised what was happening, we were above the millions of lakes of northern Quebec. It was almost night time although the Sun never entirely disappeared. At the darkest time there was still a glow at the horizon. The view was absolutely stunning when we got to the extreme north end of the continent, just before flying over a cloud covered Arctic Sea.

We arrived at 19h00 (7h00 Quebec time). Without too much difficulty I was able to take a bus to downtown Beijing. We drove past the Forbidden City’s main gates, simply magnificent! Many of the skyscrapers were absolutely spectacular in their architectural design. The streets were buzzing and slightly chaotic but not too much.

After getting off, I faced my first true challenge, finding a taxi who knew where my hostel was. Even though I had taken care of asking my flight neighbour to translate the address on a piece of paper for me, none would take me. I must have stopped and asked about 10 different cabs, they all waved me away. Finally I stumbled upon a young Chinese man who spoke ok English and helped me negotiate with an old diver. Even him did not know exactly where it was. I went with him anyway with my fingers crossed. He was driving like a mad man amongst pedestrians who had to run for their lives. I’m exaggerating a bit here but not much really.

We were both very happy to finally find it. He charged my twice the “normal” fair, 30 RMB (about 4.25$). Rather cheap still and at this point I was just thrilled to have finally reached my destination. A rejuvenating shower and a comfy bed were impatiently waiting for me. All and all, a 32 hrs. day.

So here I am, in one of the nicest, most comfortable, and charming hostels I ever visited. It is a good starting point to slowly beging the taming of the Chinese Dragon.