March - Family Gathering in Hong Kong
In late March, after a year and a half, I saw my family again in Hong Kong. I flew to Hong Kong a few days before my family arrived from England and before J arrived from Korea. It was great to get everybody together and it was also the first time my parents met J.
It really reminded me how important family is and sometimes we don’t always realise that until we spend a long time away from them. When I picked them up at the airport, I almost didn’t recognise my brother, he’d grown so tall.
It was J’s first time to HK so we went to all the touristy places; dinner at the top of Victoria’s Peak (this is the view from the restaurant), a ferry ride across Victoria Harbour, checked out Disneyland, caught the city lights at Tsim Sha Tsui, ate at the seaside restaurants of Sai Kung, and shopped at the famous malls at Central.
After what seemed a lightning 2 weeks, my time was up and I returned to Beijing with great memories and I couldn’t wait until the next time we could do it again.
April to May - Cherry Blossoms
We’ve all had that depressing feeling of being indoors and looking out of the window longingly when the weather outside is fucking awesome. One of the things I enjoy most about my job is that if I have an idea I want to follow-up on, I can generally do it.
Spring was upon us and it was a really good time to get students and teachers out of the classroom and into the great outdoors. There were also many places in and around Beijing that I’d never been to before and it was a great opportunity for me to visit these places too.
The first place we went to was a rural area about 2 hours away from central Beijing called Ping Gu. I was told that it was Cherry Blossom (or Sakura, as it’s known in Japan) season and that Ping Gu was a great place to see them.
For those who don’t know much about Cherry Blossoms, it is indigenous to many Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea, and they represent good fortune, love, and the coming of Spring.
The practice of flower-viewing, or Hanami, is a very important in Asian culture and we thought it’d be an opportunity for a nice field trip for students.
Absolutely flabbergasted at the thought that vegetation could grow in Beijing’s arid landscape let alone Cherry Blossoms, I jumped at the chance to get a centre trip organised. Working in co-ordination with 3 other centres in Beijing, we eventually had around 100 students in 4 coaches on the way to Ping Gu.
After a long and bumpy coach ride out into the sticks, we eventually arrived in the Ping Gu area. It was a far cry from the urban jungle that is Beijing: the skies were clear blue, and air was fresh and the roads deserted.
When we went looking around for the fields of fluffy pink clouds, we found nothing but fields of bare branches with just a smattering a pink here and there. Beijing had been experiencing fierce gale-force winds and all the flowers had been blown away.
After some driving around however, we did find some Cherry Blossoms in full bloom and our luck hadn’t completely run out.
After taking some photos we went to eat some local delicacies like jellied pigs ear, wood fungus in garlic sauce, and sauteed duck’s tongue. We then worked off the calories by climbing some nearby hills and we had some fantastic views of the area.
After arriving back in Beijing with a lungful of fresh air and an empty stomach, I was already planning the next outing.
