What did I do in 2009? Part Five - The Rest in Pictures
05 Feb, 2010
posted by mingkliu in Musing| Photography
May - The Summer Palace
In this month, I took my students on a field trip to the Summer Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage site and once back garden of emperors past.
‘Epic’ would be one word to describe this place, from the huge man-made Kunming Lake to the man-made Longevity Hill but I think ‘Imperial’ would be a better one.
Some cool photos I took of this place.
I also popped over to Busan in South Korea for a week to visit J during the May holiday. Busan is a pretty chilled place and it’s Haeundae beach (which was the subject of a recent Korean disaster movie) reminded me a lot of Bournemouth back in Blighty. Funnily enough, there were actually a lot of foreigners in the bars around the beach drinking beers.
Back in Beijing, I took advantage of the fantastic weather and my (rapidly decreasing) free time by taking snaps of my surroundings to keep me going through those cold (and shit) winter days and winter nights.
June to September - J comes to Beijing
The summer months of 2009 were the best I’d had in a long time. J came to Beijing to stay for 3 months to study HSK (which is the official Mandarin Chinese proficiency test) with the aim of bolstering her portfolio of certificates and qualifications and in turn giving her a half chance to get a job in the ultra-competitive and discriminatory Korean job market.
The classes were full-on: 5pm to 10pm, half hour break, intense study of HSK papers and memorization of long lists on Chinese characters. It sounded my French lessons back at school - but on crack.
This was also the longest period of time we’d spent together without having to fly back to our base countries so it was a nice change 
These summer months were a blur of parks, boat rides, drinking, movies and stupid amounts of… food. (this is a family show).
September - Lost my iPhone
The night before J had to leave Beijing we both got hammered on the rest of the alcohol I had in my apartment: Malibu and OJ (just like the Opera House used to make it), JB scotch, Kahlua, Tsingtao beer, and Korean soju.
After what seemed like 10 minutes sleep, we awoke and went to the airport at 6 am and I was still thoroughly inebriated. I threw on some really baggy jeans that I’d bought in Hong Kong about 4 years ago and whilst I was slouched on the back seat of the taxi, dribbling on the upholstery, my sleek iPhone slipped quietly out of my pocket.
Now normally, 10 times out of 10, I’ll check the taxi seat before I close the door to make sure I don’t leave anything behind, but that morning I couldn’t even remember that I’d taken a shower 60 minutes previously before let alone having the essence of mind to check the taxi seat.
One taxi trip back from the airport, an upturned room and 25 minutes of slurred shouting of obscenities later, I sat on my bed having grudgingly accepted that my iPhone was now in the hands of a gleeful bastard taxi driver who I shouldn’t have tipped when I got out… Bastard.
October - Hong Kong and my new centre
After working in the Wangjing centre for 10 months, the newest centre was finally ready to open and I was offered the manager position which I was really excited about. The last 2 years of slogging was down to this: becoming my own manager and doing something else besides teaching full-time.
To recharge my batteries and refresh myself before taking on this new challenge, I was once again back in Hong Kong to chill out and to also pick up a new iPhone. The month I spent using a crappy old phone I had felt like using one of these.
It made me realise how much I depend on my iPhone.
It was the time of Mid-Autumn Festival so it was good spending a holiday with a family member, something I hadn’t done for 4 or 5 years. I also did a fair bit of exploring around Hong Kong Island and Kowloon but I spent most of my time in Sai Kung, my father’s hometown, and took in as much of the abundant fresh air and natural surroundings as possible - something which is nigh on impossible to do in Beijing.
Whilst in Sai Kung, I visited a nature reserve called ‘Lions Nature Reserve’. Disappointingly, there weren’t any lions there and all there was were a bunch of flowers.
After 2 weeks of recharging, I was almost ready to go back and begin a new step in my life - when I caught a cold which then developed into a fever… 3 days before my flight back to Beijing.
