Snow is rather rare in dry Beijing but this Sunday 22 November I woke up to a white Julong Garden

Now later I have to jump on my bike…

I finally found the restaurant, close to the Marriot North East Hotel in a rather dark alley. One has to know… Off Xiaoyun Lu. Pretty big, rather empty when I was there with a Filipino band playing nearly for me alone. Good choice of German beers.

Did not try the food yet, they have the typical variety of German dishes. Said to be run by a Chinese coming back from Germany. Prices seem reasonable but I wonder about the quality of the food: some of the dishes need to be done “freshly” and cannot be reheated, with so few clients that might be a question mark.

Just after the October 1 holidays – combined with the Mid Autumn holiday, everyone was either busy getting back to work or getting back to Beijing.
Anyway we were just over 20, not too bad!

Our next lunch is on Friday 6 November. I will be away from Beijing from 2 to 15 November to be part of the filing of a 3D documentary of the New Three Gorges”, another adventure. Colin will take care of the RSVP.

Due to the parade and restrictions for traffic and restaurants, our monthly lunch was this time on a Saturday, 5 September.

Again, despite the weird timing we were just over 20!
Next lunch is Friday 9 October as 2 October was right in the holidays.

Important update: with our experience of the rehearsal of the parade, the restaurant staff was not able to reach the restaurant the next morning. So, the date of 4 September would not work. We decided to do hold the lunch on Saturday 5 September, that day being an official holiday. As from 7 September everybody will be busy…

Yes, so much we had one of the largest turnouts on Friday 7 August! We were 35!
As usual, when the date seems weird or not convenient we have more people than usual.

Again, lively conversations for some two hours.
The next date is again “unusual”: Friday 4 September. Indeed, 3 to 5 September will be a national holiday with a certified blue sky and guaranteed low traffic. The Beijing government will paralyze the city and industry to “celebrate” some war stories and hold a big parade.
We are still checking that that Friday will work before sending out the emails. Stay tuned!
So, what else to do but to rush to our monthly lunch?