Christmas!

Obviously Christmas in Beijing is a little more subdued than we are traditionally used to. That said the local shopping mall did have some festive displays but there was a distinct lack of the normal bombardment of Christmas music - a good or bad thing, you decide. So it was that the big day kinda crept up on us a little bit. I had only taken the one day off work and left all my present buying to the sunday beforehand. Not such a problem as there was little sign of any rush on the shops. Mind you it first required negotiating some shopping time by myself since weekends have become very much family time together. But with presents in the bag we were set and ready to go.
After a relatively good nights sleep we also had our first present, Alex slept in a bit in the morning. Something to be thankful for and we grabbed the Z's while they were on offer. Once we were up and moving he withdrew his favour and launched a missle of a poo into his nappy. Soon we were splashing around in the bath giving him a good clean. Son - cause and effect, simply the learning curve of life. We can't complain, I had a text from Duncan whose young one is only a little older than Alex and in his own words 'Hannah's pressie to us this year is a sleepless night' so it could have been worse.
With all that out the way we got on with opening our presents trying to keep Alex as excited as we clearly were. Despite the last minute nature we had a few things wrapped up and so the traditional pile of paper on the floor grew. Fueled by non-stop Christmas carols I think even Alex got in the mood and after some family snaps we let him open his present with a lot of help from us.
Presents of course being the focal point of the day the rest started to flash by. We had a roast chicken - I've never been bothered with Turkey - for lunch, a sleepy lazy afternoon with some board games while Alex slept. Then Alex gave us our own present, he went to bed at 6pm and slept soundly so we could relax for a while.
All in all it was hard to remember we were in Beijing as this would have read much the same in the UK. On the other hand we are looking forward to the Chinese New Year to get a bit more involved in the local celebrations. 

　

Pollution, xmas and general catch up

As predicted signing up for the training crash course of being parents has slowed down our entry rate onto the blog. On the other hand we have resisted the temptation to detail every wakeful night or every inconsolable bout of crying - we are reliably informed that it is part of the process that these minor details fade in the memory which explains how anyone fools themselves enough to come back for a second try. Sometimes even after the unimaginable challenge of twins.

Now that winter has arrived in all it's minus 10 glory a couple of things become obvious. It is much less fun waiting for my bus to work outside in the morning and the pollution levels have got noticeably worse. I'm told that all the heating plants within the 5th ring road are now powered by natural gas or 'clean' imported coal and the emissions then scrubbed but even so we have had some very poor days. Most ex-pats keep an eye on the air quality index as published by the US embassy via IPhone apps. Anything over 150 on the air quality index is considered bad, we were treated to a 500 day a couple of weeks ago and it was hard to see the buildings opposite so we decided it was best to hunker down indoors with our air filters going full blast. While wind brings with it icy fingers to make a mockery of any warm clothing it does take with it the pollution so we look forward to the bright, frosty and clear days. To be fair this is more often than not but the pea soupers stick in the mind a little more. On the up side we are told it was much worse prior to the 2008 which saw the start of a concentrated effort to clean up the air - let's hope they keep it up.

We didn't expect much from the Christmas celebrations here but are being pleasently surprised. The lcoal shopping mall is getting in the swing with decorations and a festive display for kiddies. Moreover the ex-pat community obviously support the festivities full tilt with many of the schools laying on Christmas markets. Our first attempt at picking up some yule tide nic naks fell a bit short when we decided on arrival to take advantage of a sleeping baby and a Mexican resturant. By the time we finished the market had packed up and left - half an hour early. The second attempt went much better and was a lot bigger. A short taxi ride away saw us to a very posh school with lots of stalls and a food hall at the back which we headed straight for choosing to indulge in hot dogs - not so festive but a novelty none the less. One aspect we hadn't counted on was all the locals being fascinated by the baby Eleanor had in her sling and we were stopped for quite a few photos. It seems taking babies out and about is very rare in China where the first few months are expected to be at home so we represented something of an oddity. Still not sure if the photos were to show friends or what passes for social services we smiled blandly all the same. We managed to pick up some little presents and a small stocking for the little noisy bugger chubby cheeked baby and considered it a job well done. On the way out there were some masseurs offering a free trial to entice you to head over to their clinic. Figuring this was a nice treat for a mother who has back ache from carrying a baby in a sling we signed up. Everything was heading in the right direction until they demonstrated their skills at massaging the tips of the elbow with vice like pinches. Two days later Eleanor had just about recovered.

 

Maintenance...

There were a number of small maintenance jobs to be done after we'd moved into our apartment, and we expected them to be done in the first week.  Some of them were.  Others, inexplicably, took much longer.  In particular sealing up a gap between some tiles in the kitchen where ants were coming through.  This sounds like an easy job; certainly at home we'd have done it ourselves in 5 minutes.  Here things are much more complicated.  It took 5, yes FIVE, separate visits from maintenance to get this simple job done.  The first three people just came to look at the problem.  Then a man came who had the tools for the job but was told he wasn't allowed to do the work until the landlord had agreed the quote so he went away again with both of us disappointed. Lastly, 2 men turned up together to do the work.  We have no idea why it was so complicated, or indeed, why it took 4 weeks to arrange...

On a brighter note, Baby Alex is 3 weeks old today.  He's becoming quite a chubby boy and seems content most of the time...

New arrival and heating

As some of you have commented our frequency of posting has dropped dramatically of late. Or to read it another way just plain stopped! We have not left Beijing for home but have in fact just had our first child, Baby Alexander Ying Bolton. This good news obviously comes with the cost of being very busy learning to be parents so be patient, we will keep posting eventually!

One topic which we are getting used to here is the heating. Basically it is centrally controlled so we have no say in when it kicks in, or indeed to turn it off if there is a warm day. Right now it is pretty cold but since it has been decided that warmth will only arrive in two days time we are snuggling up at night when it is a bit nippy. We tried explaining to a local the concept of piping gas to a house and then generating the heat there as and when the tenants needed it but this was literally a foreign concept. Much confusion arose with basically the question of why? dominating the proceedings.

First accident.....

Clearly China is not as safety mad as most Western states - perhaps due to the lack of a culture of suing. In theory this should make people more cautious but as anyone who has visited Beijing the roads are the obvious exception. I jumping in a taxis for a ride back to work and as normal there were seat belts in the back but nothing to clip them into - seat belts seemingly are reserved for the drivers only. Having successfully negotiated the roads and traffic the taxis pulled off the main road and onto a parallel slip lane and pulled up at the side while I rummaged round to pay the driver. Cash handed over in the normal ritual of smiles and nods I step out the taxis and onto the pavement - at least that was the plan. A fraction of a second too late as I opened my door the driver shouted but the door had already clipped the handle bars of a moped taking advantage of the small gap between taxis and curb to overtake the rest of the traffic flowing around the other side. Needless to say the moped driver rolled off the bike and with a thump hit the ground. Of course concerned I leapt out to assess the damage, with helmets being rare even a simple tumble could be fatal. The taxis driver was also concerned but he chose to demonstrate this by jumping out, shutting my door, jumping back in and driving off. The lass on the floor seemed a bit groggy and luckily someone stepped over to help who could speak Chinese and English to help with the communication. A minute or two later with the moped returned to the upright position she was back on her way insisting she was fine. A little shaken I made it the rest of the way to the office but couldn't help wondering what would have happened if there had been serious injury; not everyone has medical insurance here and without it there is little chance of getting any attention. In this case I would have felt very guilty, even though the blame was probably shared, and for certain it would not have been much fun to live through for either party.

I now look twice before getting out of a taxis...

It's all about the little milestones....

Having left a lot of normality behind us it is surprising just how much we celebrate the small things. With the apartment in place we walked to the local supermarket a couple of days ago which naturally caters for the ex-pats in the area. It is only small but it was with childish delight we walked round spotting all the familiar brands that we had assumed we had left behind. Weetabix caused quite a stir and no small punching of the air given that has been my staple breakfast for many years. Add in Heinz tomato ketchup, a good selection of wines and a deli counter selling cheeses from around the world and we were literally chuckling in anticipation. Aside from food we managed to buy a router and now have wireless access to the internet throughout the flat which brings the ipad back in usefulness. Last and surely by no means least we now own a kettle and have just enjoyed our first cup of tea for 6 weeks! Small things but milestones none the less.

Moving in!!!!!

At last we have somewhere to live!! No more repetitive music at the hotel breakfast, no more extending our stay yet again and no more having to go out to find food every night. Yay!! The moving in process was quite painless - our real estate agent picked us up in a large vehicle, although I think even then they were as surprised as us to find out how much we have collected in our hotel room including not only what we arrived with but also what we have purchased on the way - prams for instance. After some discussions with the security we weer allowed to park in the underground car park and made good use of the pram to help transport the smaller bags up the lift.

I hadn't seen this flat and relied on Eleanor's advice that is was fine so I enjoyed looking around when we first turned up. It was mainly empty of furniture - not as easy as that sounds when renting here - and has plenty of space for our stuff. Job number one was to put together the bed that had been delivered from Ikea. Thankfully Curtis - a work mate from Canada - was around to help as this did not live up to Ikea's reputation of being simple and easy to put together and I was beginning to regret not paying the £10 extra for the delivery men to assemble it as well! Having worked for an effective £5 an hour we splashed out on some frozen pizza for tea while we waited for our curtains to arrive. In the meantime the landlord popped round to check out the list of items we had asked to be fixed and took away a few things we said we didn't. One such item was the only chair in the flat - a mistake which became apparent when the short man with the curtains turned up and looked forlornly up at the curtain rails way above his head. Cue some balancing on window sills and reaching up. One rail extended past the window ledge a couple of feet so I volunteered to lean precariously over to make the hook - only to find his hands firmly planted on my bottom to steady me - actually very helpful if a little forward. Curtains in place we happily headed to bed for our first night at home!

Getting anywhere....

Transport in most big cities is always a bit of fun. Some have slick buses, some easy walking. Beijing has a number of good options and all of it very cheap. The subway for instance is only 2 Yuan a trip (20 pence uk money), probably 10 times cheaper than London. Mind you at times it can be 10 times busier as well but the trains are regular and the journeys normally pretty quick.

If this doesn't tickle the right spot then there are always a lot of taxis around. Mind you the trick here is trying to get them to stop and after that trying to get them to go where you have in mind. Unlike many countries this problem is not one of them trying to take you to the nearest shop to cream off commission but rather a genuine problem of communication. Know where you want to go? Tick. Be able to say it in Chinese? Cross. Have it written down in English? Tick Have it written down in Chinese? Cross. Have a map with the location marked? Tick - no matter this never seems to work anyway. Cue many frustrating (for both sides) conversations which lead to tracking down third parties out to help translate. If you are planning on visiting can I highly suggest getting an app for your phone which can display place names in Chinese! We have a printed book from our real estate agent with the English and Chinese side by side - this has possibly saved hours of our life.

Other options are biking - despite the much higher chance of accidents helmets are still a rare sight even on Westerners but most people do survive. The final choice is to walk - not as bad as it sounds but then the maps here do not live up to OS map standards so it is easy to tack on an extra few km's with ease! 

Waiting for shipping

Everything we have for two months while we wait for our shipping to arrive!

First time blog

So let's start with the fact that we've never written a blog before so if there are unwritten rules we break that have experts tutting under their breath, well too bad we are making this up as we go along.

Having decided to move to Beijing just before Eleanor is due to give birth will either be a brilliant move or a terrible one. Either way I'm hoping we will have a few tales to share.

We have moved from Abingdon, England and have never lived abroad before. In fact we move from a steady job, great friends and a lovely house so like you we are asking ourselves why we felt compelled to take a step away from comfort. Luckily we are adventurous by nature so the unknown held a lot of appeal but if I had to boil it down I would say that looking at our two options - several years in Abingdon or Beijing - we belive that we'll have more stories to tell will the latter option. Let's see!

How many bathrooms does one flat need?

We are deep into the process of finding somewhere to live and there are a few odd things which stick out. Firstly it makes no sense what so ever. For instance we have spent two weeks discussing with one landlord the possibility of them removing some furniture from the flat before we move in. So far they have refused at a slow pace, so slow in fact that the rent that they have missed out on would have paid for all the furniture and more! Odd and frustrating in equal measure. One flat we looked at hadn't been finished and even the estate agent advised us not to move in as the landlord was out the country and it was unlikely to be completed anytime soon. How long had it been on the market in this half finished state? 6 months!

But what I really want to get onto is the love of bathrooms that seems to be in the air. All flats proudly state their total floor area and most are impressively big. However, what they fail to mention is how much of this is redundant bathrooms. Almost all flats have one bathroom per bedroom, one even had four bedrooms and five bathrooms - most which will thoughtfully include a shower as well just so you do not need to repeat during the week. But seriously how much choice do you need in the morning? I'm happy with 'mint shower gel or lavendar?' to start the day. Perhaps the people associate the number of bathrooms with how clean you must be, or perhaps it is just a sign of status that you can afford to have five bathrooms. For me I see it as bike storage space in the making!

Getting the right drink....

Colin:

A week in and we have been to a few restaurants and so far there has been one constant: the inability to get the drinks we ordered. Never the worst result in the world but each time we use the normally flawless method of pointing at the menu and looking hopeful and each time we get a drink not too far away, but never quite what we had hoped for. A glimer of hope shone through last night when I did get exactly what I asked for but then also got a copy of the drink Eleanor had ordered. In fact in general our food ordering has seemed to work out well - what makes drinks so hard!?

Run up to moving.....

Colin: 
Moving to Beijing can hardly be described as a spontaneous move. Last year we considered going somewhere abroad to work and sifted through the various options my company could offer and only after much deliberation did Beijing make it to the top of the list. A position was offered and a moving date after Eleanor would give birth in October made it feel that we had plenty of time to organise our life before moving out in a calm and collected manner. This lasted about a week when we were told that my job had changed and it now meant starting as soon as possible, with the unlikely timeframe of 6 weeks set. Cue a furiously busy time trying to get our house in order for renting, organising visas, packing and spending any spare time seeing as many friends as we could before we left. Many thanks to those who came to visit or rescheduled plans at the last minute - we didn't have much flexibility at this point! Thankfully we saw many of our good friends before leaving with the most common comment being "you're brave". Not feeling all that brave we nodded and said our thanks while wondering how this was all going to turn out. At first glance it does look like a lot of change, our first baby on the way, a new country to live in and a new job to get to grips with. On the other hand I've been told that just the first will turn your life upside down anyway so hopefully the other two pale in comparison :-)

Eleanor:
We have reached the end of Phase 1 of the "Big Move": after the last 7 weeks of crazy organisation, we finally flew out to Beijing.  A final trip to the recycling centre, some vacuuming (using the borrowed cleaner after ours had broken with 2 rooms to go the previous day), taking said cleaner back to it's owners and saying a last goodbye, and leaving the car in Colin's work's car park (paperwork already left with a friend in preparation for being sold - thanks Matt!), we were ready to leave.  Our taxi to the airport was not as large as we had hoped for but we managed to squeeze everything in once we had utilized the front passenger seat for our largest bag, and had an uneventful journey down.

We had anticipated a struggle at the check-in desk as all 3 conversations we had had with BA customer services had left us with the distinct impression that they would stick to the letter of their hand luggage policy and not allow the violin and viola on as hand luggage.  It's not ideal for them them to be in the hold but the thought of baggage handlers at each end was making us very uneasy.  In the the end though we were just waved through.  Whether this was due to the premier economy seats, local interpretation of the rules or me saying they were coming on as hand luggage in a very certain (and polite) tone is unknown but we were very grateful.

The 10 hour flight was also not as bad as expected, mostly due to the aforementioned premier economy seats (usually it's economy all the way).  Slightly more room, better reclining angles, better food (unless that is just standard for BA?) along with a decent entertainment system got us through.  We were particularly impressed by a family who had the 2 seats next to us and 3 in front for mum, dad, 3 children and a small baby.  When we boarded the plane we had one of those 'uh oh' moments but the children were entertained and slept most of the night and all through the landing and we didn't hear a peep out of the baby.  On arrival at Beijing, we got through the passport checks very quickly and were picked up and taken to our hotel.