Life in the city

Exploring The Pho Laboratory with Rotaract

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

On 27 May we had an unplanned gathering of Rotaract friends in the tiny restaurant “The Pho Laboratory”, a Vietnamese noodle outlet across the street from the Great Leap Brewing restaurant. Thanks Jaime for setting this up.

 

I should go back there again to have a real dinner as the noodles tasted great but I had had another dinner that evening. And I need to find out more about their banner “Notre Dame Club”: every year I talk to their (E)MBA students visiting Beijing. A very well known U.S. University.

Birthdays and more birthdays!

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

I did not post yet the pics of our birthdays. We have pretty unusual dates: myself 31 December, Sun 14 February. Valerie follows on 21 February.
Sun got two cakes on Valentine. As usual we celebrate in Morel’s Restaurant.

Except for Valerie as she had to work, she wanted her Japanese sushi and we had other friends joining.

Meeting a Nobel Prize winner! Yes, in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

On the occasion of the visit to China of Professor François ENGLERT (ULB), the Nobel Prize Winner for Physics 2013 together with Peter HIGGS for the discovery of the Higgs mechanism H.E. Michel MALHERBE, Ambassador of Belgium to China and Mr. Philippe NAYER, Delegate of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and of Wallonia invited us for a reception on Wednesday June 4th at the Embassy of Belgium.

Well, not everyday you meet somebody like that, so my daughter Valerie insisted to witness the unique event.
The professor was pretty friendly and talkative and made it, along with a cool breeze, a nice evening. Even better as Renaat Morel spoiled us with another great buffer and Belgian beer.
Great event and I met the ambassador of Malta who turned out to be a real “Old china Hand”!

Note: some content and pics removed.

Old China Hands Lunch 6 June

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Yes, another round of our monthly gathering and it seemed all were pretty happy chatting with each other, so I had to ask them to sit down and order…

Always a good sign!
Some got stuck in the thunderstorm or in meetings or somewhere enjoying a beach.
Next lunch is 4 July! Same place as usual, Morel’s Restaurant on Gongti Bei Lu.

The Old China Hands in action!

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

One other lunch in Morel’s Restaurant on 9 May. Normally it is on the first Friday of the month but because of the May 1st holidays, one week later.


While our mailing list is now a bit over 100 registered “members”, our Old China Hands are rather a bunch of busy people, stuck in meetings, travelling abroad or within China. Our attendance rate is thus always unpredictable but somewhere between 20 and 30%: a pretty good number allowing much interaction.
Our next lunch is 6 June.
I have also created a new group on LinkedIn: the “Beijing Monthly Old China Hands Lunch”: http://lnkd.in/bnzH-Z4
Welcome to join if you are an expat with at least 10 years of China!