This was the year of weddings apparently since three friends of mine got married and a few more got engaged. In July Sheng (one of the TSF family) got married which meant a TSF reunion. Ana, June, Steven, Kevin and Andrew all flew over to Dutchland for the wedding (for pics click here). It was one crazy week for me picking up and dropping off the TSF crew but it was very nice seeing them again and ofcourse spending time with my sweetheart Ana. We even managed to squeeze in a trip to Cologne and saw the yearly fireworks “Köln Lighter”. Cologne pics click here. The week after I went to London to visit the UK office of TOPdesk which was a nice experience. London is a beautiful city and I managed to get some nice nightshots while I was there. London pics click here.

In August I turned 30 leaving behind the twenties I wasn’t planning on celebrating it but my parents arranged for a surprise birthday party with friends and family I haven’t seen in a while. Loved it and had a very enjoyable evening. September was the wedding of Rezi & Marc and in October the wedding of Yip Wing & Naomi. I’ve known Rezi, Yip & Naomi since highschool, so that would be roughly half my life. I had a blast on both weddings and am very happy for them.

The last week of October I went on holiday to San Francisco with Ana. We met up with June and had a blast in SF. I love SF and definitely want to go back again in the future since there’s quite a few things to see in and around SF. If you want to see the pics click here.

Gadgets wise the last seven months I’ve spent quite a bit of money. Hey I can’t help it, I’m a gadget nerd. I got myself a Macro lens the 100L from Canon. I love this lens to use for Macro’s and tele shots. Though I must admit on a crop DSLR like my Canon 500D it is a bit too long inside for normal use. Can’t wait to use it on a full frame but that will have to wait until Canon releases a 5D mark III. I also replaced my trusty old Canon Ixus 800IS point and shoot for the Canon Powershot S95. For the times I don’t want or can’t bring my DSLR along. Which is weekdays when I head to clients for work, then I can use the S95 to take pics when I’m on the road. I also got myself a new phone to replace my Nokia E72, which is still a very good phone but I started to find the lack of app support for Symbian getting annoying. So after years and years of Nokia Symbian phones I got myself the HTC Desire Z with Android. Wow, it really showed me how much catching up Nokia has to do with their Symbian OS compared to Android and iOS from Apple. But then again, I didn’t really check out the newer Nokia models with touch screens so I can’t really say if there had been an improvement. The last gadget I got myself was something I didn’t think I would get, an iPod Nano 6th Gen. Or should I say iPod Nano G6? It’s definitely Fly like a G6

Since it’s been a long while that I updated my website I decided to change the theme, hope you like it. The picture right above the menu’s in the header is one that I made. I’ll try to update it every now and then with new pics that I shot. Well that’s it for now, once again Merry Christmas! Enjoy the holiday’s and I’ll leave you with a Christmas song.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrsdOwVZcs

So how did this all happen? It all started with Suzanne planning on coming to visit her boyfriend Marc, she convinced Andrew to come and he (along with some of the Dutchies) managed to convince Steven & Ana to also join in the same timeframe that Suzanne was coming over. Result: a big TSF family reunion.

It started on Tuesday the 25th of November when Ana landed at 6am. Yeah I was there to pick her up since she was going to stay at my place for two weeks. On wednesday Suzanne landed with Marc picking her up and on Thusrday Andrew and Steven arrived. Ana, Andrew & Steven stayed at my place and Suzanne ofcourse at Marc’s place since she came to mainly see him with the rest of the TSF being an added bonus. This marked the start of three crazy days with the whole group being here. We went sightseeing to Zaanse Schans, Rotterdam & Amsterdam. Those three days passed by sooooo ridiculously fast and on Sunday we had to bring Andrew back to the airport. He was the first to leave back again, well at least he was able to join the reunion and had fun. Tuesday was Stevens turn to go back and that only left Suzanne and Ana who were staying longer in Dutchland.

Since it was the first time for Ana to visit Europe I planned out an itenary to also visit France & Belgium during her two week visit. So after the departure of Steven me and Ana went traveling. Wednesday morning it was off to Paris for two days with the mission to see as much as possible. Those were two exhausting days, we walked around Paris all day and managed to see and do all of the following: Le Sacre Coeur, The Opera House, Le Louvre, Arc the Triomphe, Notre Dame, The Eiffel Tower and walk along the Seine and Champs Elysee. Food wise we had crepes, baguettes and other yummy food.

After two days Paris it was of to Brussels and walk around in city center. Ofcourse we had to see Manneke Pis, The Cartoon Walls, Grand Place and have yummy food (chocolate, wafels, mussels etc.). To bad we didn’t manage to hit the Atomium, since I also have neer been there before. Oh well, another time. The next day it was already the last city before going back to Dutchland, off to the city of Antwerp. We walked around city center, had lunch and dinner and went back to Amsterdam. That was last week Saturday and three days ago on Tuesday the 9th of December Ana left for NY. Marking the end of the TSF reunion, Suzanne left a few days before Ana did.

I had a great time with all of you, in BJ and here in Dutchland. I won’t say goodbye but:

“Untill we meet again!!!”

Because I know I will try visit you all in the future. Don’t know when and I don’t know where but our paths will cross again.

.

from left to right: Pamela, Andrew, Sheng, Marc, Suzanne, Steven, Wijie, Ana and me sitting in the clog

from left to right: Wijie, Hing me, Pamela, Ana, Andrew, Suzanne, Marc, Steven & Sheng

from left to right: Sammy, Pamela, Andrew, Suzanne, Marc, Sheng, Ana, me, Steven & Wijie

]]> http://www.guychen.nl/2008/12/12/tsf-reunion-in-the-netherlands/feed/ 0 http://www.guychen.nl/2008/08/29/a-week-of-travel-and-adventure/ http://www.guychen.nl/2008/08/29/a-week-of-travel-and-adventure/#comments Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:57:28 +0000 Guy Chen http://www.guychen.nl/?p=239 Continue reading →]]> After a week of BJ and Olympic madness me and Giovanna decided to travel off to the province of Anhui to climb Huangshan and meet up with her little brother Feng and his gf. We took a plane to Nanjing and from there we took a bus to Tunxi. Or so we thought, apparently we took the bus to Tangkou instead. We cabbed the way from Tangkou to Tunxi and met up with Feng and Wai Ah at the Koala Hostel in Lao jie in Tunxi.

We spent Thursday at Yixian were we walked around and saw the old part next to the river and took a short boat ride.

Friday we got up early and went of to climb the eastern steps of Huangshan. We started our climb at the eastern steps around 9am ish and we were at the summit around 4pm ish. The climb up was pretty easy and we could enjoy the scenery even though it was a bit cloudy at some times. But we also had a fair share of sunshine. That is, until we got to the summit. It started raining cats & dogs. Or as Kevin would say: “We got pissed on”. So we went to find a hotel to spend the night. Let me say one thing, hotels on Huangshan are bloody expensive!!! We stayed at and the price of a standard room with 2 single beds was 1080rmb, we got a discount but it was still 950rmb. We just booked one room and stayed in it with 4. Man, I could do a weekend trip with the money I spent for one night.

Anyway, the next day we got up at 4am to catch the sunrise on top of the mountain. Well, the only thing is that it was so cloudy and rainy that we could not see the sunrise. The only thing we noticed was that is was getting lighter. While we missed the sunrise we did manage to capture the sea of clouds covering the mountain. Which was an awesome sight, well for me at least. It stayed cloudy and rainy the rest of the day so we barely got to see anything during our climb down the western steps. So we decided to take the cable car down and head back to Koala Hostel.

Sunday we went to see 2 old villages which are also Unesco Heritage sites. Yeah baby, two more Unesco sites done in China. The villages we went to are Hongcun and Xidi. Apparently a few scenes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed in Hongcun, mostly in the beginning of the movie. So when I get back home I’m going to rewatch the movie. After visiting Hongcun and admiring the scenery we went to Xidi to walk around and admire the architecture.

On Monday we were planning to leave Tunxi and split up. Me going back to BJ to relax the last few days before flying back to NL from BJ and the others to Shanghai to spend some days there before they fly back to NL from SH. Well that was the plan before something happened that made us change plans.

We were in a minibus on the way to the bus station in Tunxi when we got into a car accident. The minibus we were in crashed into a truck. Thank god the crash happened as it did. Otherwise my injuries would have been more severe. I was sitting next to the driver when we crashed into the truck, thank god the others where in the back and only have some bruises and a few scrapes. Me, my left leg was luckily not broken, just bruises and scrapes. Which hurt like hell after the crash. My right leg was worse, at the hospital they had to put it in cast so I would not worsen my injury on my knee more. But since it was a local hospital with no English speaking staff we did not understand what was wrong with my knee. Even with the help of the manager of Koala doing translating we couldn’t.

After we were done at the hospital we went back to Koala and stayed there to rest and calm down after a very hectic and scary morning.

I want to thank the manager of Koala Hostel for all the help and support during the hospital and afterwards. Also the friendly and helpful staff I want to thank from the bottom of my heart. I most definitely recommend Koala Hostel at Tunxi, Lao jie to everyone that is planning to climb Huang shan. And the restaurant across from Koala for very good and delicious food.

On Tuesday Feng and Wai Ah went to SH by bus and me and Giovanna went to BJ by plane from Tunxi.

Wednesday and Thursday were slow, non eventful days in BJ. We met up with Pamela, Wijie, Zhiying, Sieds, Steven & Hana. Because of the accident I could meet up with Kevin, since he flew off to HK on Wednesday morning and I arrived Tuesday midnight in BJ. We just chillaxed and rested basically. Hmm, wait that’s not correct. Wednesday I had a medical check up at an international hospital with native English speaking doctors. I got to hear that my knee cap and bones were not broken but bruised and that there was something with my legamines. And that everything is going to be fine. The doc showed me how to treat the wound on my knee and gave me other medication. When I get back in NL I’ll just go to my doctor or hospital for further check up. On Thursday we went to The Lion King one lat time to Kala OK.

Which leads this blogpost to Friday. Pamela left earlier on the day (8am) to the airport to fly off to Dusseldorf. Wijie left with her so she wouldn’t have to go alone and me and Giovanna left a few hours later (10:45am). Giovanna helped me check in at terminal 2 and then went to terminal 3 to check in for her flight to SH.

It’s currently 4:30pm NL time and I’m finishing this post while flying somewhere near Finland I think. Started writing when I was over Moscow, so it took quite a while to type this on my pda. I should be landing around 6:30pm NL time on Schiphol airport. So that means that I have 2 more hours to go. I’ll probably try to catch a power nap in those 2 hours. Can’t wait to be back home again and get some rest and sleep in my own comfy bed.

Monday the 11th: The day of arrival
I landed on Monday the 11th in BJ, the first thing I did was get a nice Caramel Blended Cream Frap at the Starbucks in terminal 2 arrivals. Found out that my mobile number wasn’t working so head off to the China Mobile service point at arrivals. The problem was that my number was inactive because I didn’t have enough credit on it. Well, I topped up and was ready to go find my hostel which the only thing I knew was that it was near Qianmen.

I decided to take the new airport express towards BJ and it was a quick and pleasant ride, it costs 25RMB and you have to transfer at Dongzhimen by leaving the Airport line and paying 2RMB to get on the local BJ lines. So that is what I did, transfer to line 2. Getting off at Qianmen I found myself wandering around trying to find my hostel. That is untill I asked a police officer if he knew where my hostel was an old man heard my conversation and knew where my hostel was. He even guided me there through the hutongs. Yep, even though the hostel is really easy to find and walk to from Qianmen I was quite off when me and my guide started walking. Hence the 20 minute walk through hutong area. Which was quite nice. I’ve spent a year in BJ and have never even walked around the Qianmen hutong area.

Anyway, I got to the hostel, checked in and called the Tsinghua Super Friends that were still in BJ to meet up in the evening. Which we did in good old WuDaoKou, at the Tous les Jours. Yep, there I met up with Amanda, Kobe, Melissa & Kevin. My gf was already there to so that was quite a nice set up for a good old reunion. After talking for a while we headed off to the U-center for food, the Vietnamese restaurant just opened a few weeks ago and since it wasn’t open before I left BJ we all decided to go eat there. It was a nice meal, a bit expensive and the weird thing was that they were out of pho!!! How the hell can you run out of pho? The restaurants name it Phodaiz!!! Anyway, we had a good meal and guess what, 3 other TSF just got back at the Wu from a month of backpacking. So we met up with Pamela, Wijie & Sammy too. Guess it was ment to be to meet up on the first day. After a long 1st day I went back to the hostel and had a bit of rest.

Tuesday: WDK, ZGC & Holland Heiniken House
The next day I headed off to meet the Dutchies at the Wu. We met up and headed of to ZhongGuanCun (ZGC) because Pamela & Sammy wanted to buy some stuff before they left BJ. At ZGC it was like nothing had changed, it was the same pandemonium I’ve known it to be and bargening is still as timeconsuming and tiresome as it was during my year in BJ. But is was nice, as if nothing changed and we are still studying in Tsinghua.

After ZGC we went to have dinner at the Korean BBQ place next to the Pepperbar. Still don’t know the name and forgot to get a business card. Oh well, suan le. Kevin & Sieds joined us so we had a nice small (6 people already) reunion and nice Koren BBQ. Namnamnam!!! Afterwards we kind of split up and met a bit later at the WDK subway station. Pam, Wijie & Kevin went home and me, Sammy, Sieds & Steven went off to Holland Heiniken Huis. We had a lot of fun there. Dutchies all the way.

Wednesday: Off to Judo & Beach Volleyball
Wednesday was all about the Olympics. Me and my gf went to Judo in the morning which was near WDK (Chengfu lu, Xueyue lu). We saw Dutch judokas (Huizinga & Bosch) and at the end of the day one of them won a bronze medal. Sadly we didn’t see that match, but at least we got to see matches of them. After Judo, we went of to Chaoyang Gongyuan to see Beach Volley. We got there at the wrong gate and had to walk for about 30 minutes to get to the venue. Beach volley was nice to see, and we got to see Dutchies play again. Netherlands vs. Germany for both men and women. So that was fun to see. The cheerleaders were ok though, nothing special but the atmosphere and the crowd was superb.

Thursday: Ping pong at Beida
We went there not knowing who was going to play and we ended up seeing, yep Dutchland women team, against Singapore. On the other tables were South-Korea, HK, Taiwan, Sweden, Russia, Nigeria and the Chinese womens team. They just swept their competitors away, it was over very quickly. The Dutch lost but the matches were nice to see. After ping pong we went back to the Wu, shopped a bit and had dinner at Salangbang.

Friday & Saturday: Tennis time … stroll around on the Olympic Green
We went to tennis on both days and walked around the Olympic Green taking pics and stuff. On Friday we only saw doubles, Williams sisters, Davenport/Huber, Federer/??? and some others. It was really cool cause we could really sit near the court. I made a lot of pics and vids.

The second day were finals, to bad we could not get on the center court with our tickets. Otherwise we could have seen Federed win gold probably. Anyway, we saw some semi finals and bronze medal matches. It was fun to see al the matches and specially Spain vs. China womens double. That was a finals match for bronze, which Spain won. But it was fun to see the Chinese supporters and how they react and act during a match.

Sunday: Chilaxing & Heiniken House
Just chillaxing at WDK and in the evening went to Holland Heiniken House to celebrate the winning of 2 gold medals and 1 silver. Gold & silver for rowing and Gold for swimming. It was one big party over there.

The flight is a joint flight by China Southern & KLM but handled by KLM. So I’m flying with KLM, the plane is an old 747 in which there are NO screens in the seats in front of us. That sucks big time, China Southern planes have screens in front of you which is less straining for the neck. I’ve got a crap seat for watching TV. Oh well, luckily I put some movies on my Meizu M6 and a lot of extra music. And I can always write blog posts on my HTC in the plane so they are ready to be published on my blog.

The view is just amazing with the sun & the clouds. To bad I don’t have my own cam with me at the moment. I’m using a Fuji F31fd for the moment since my gf took my Canon Ixus 800IS to BJ so she can take pics. She is more able to use my cam than the Fuji of her brother. While I really like the Fuji it is hard to get good pics out of it. Auto setting is not really recommended to get the best IQ (Image Quality) in pics and manually setting is advised. While I did shoot in manual with my Canon I takes getting used to fiddle with the settings of the Fuji and it has different options feature wise than my Canon. Oh well, I think I just have to get used to the settings the coming 3 weeks.

Enough rambling for now, drinks are being served and I’m guessing food will come soon so till the next update (will it be written in the plane?).

Anyway, I’m gonna try to keep updating my blog in China but I can’t make any guarantees that I can. It all depends on if I have time and internet in whatever form. Well, that’s it for now. Gonna get a bite to eat and head off to the Airport.

I’ll be back in Dutchland on the 29th so take care all and keep in touch. I’ll try in China.

The lighting of the torch was just like a scene that would have fitted in the traditional Chinese Martial Arts movies where people fly and soar through the skies. Only in China and by Zhang Yimou … who highlighted the typical traditional and also stereotipical traits of Chinese history. It is gonna be hard to top this spectacle and I’m curious if they ever will.

I’m really looking forward to going to BJ tomorrow and being there next week soaking up the atmosphere and vibe that the Olympics have brought to BJ. It will also be a refreshing experience seeing BJ and China during the Olympics after spending the last 365 days before the Olympics in BJ. Heard that a lot has changed, and seen some of it in the short newsflashes the last month that I’ve been back in the Netherlands. So I wonder how it’s gonna be.

I’m anxious to see my friends in BJ that are still around for the moment. Catch up on the last month and chillaxing. Well one more day and I’m off … to the Beijing Olympics.

Yep, about two days ago on Sunday me and a friend of mine elebrated our b-days together. We decided to eat Spanish food and that means TAPAS !!! Yeah, really nice, since I haven’t had good nice tapas since I don’t know how long ago. At least 1 1/2 year or something like that. So we went to this restaurant called: “Paso Doble” in an part of Amsterdam that is called “De Jordaan”.

It’s a nice area and there are quite a few restaurants, bars (think of English pubs and you kind of have a feel what bars are in Dutchland) and places to lounge. We had nice convo’s about what everyone has been doing, nice food and ofcourse nicer alcoholic beverages “Mohitooooo”. After dinner we all went our seperate ways and in about a month when I’m back in Dutchland after 3 weeks China we’re definately gonna meet up again and chillax.

That was my Sunday evenening, yesterday I went to get myself a backpack for the trip to China. I already went to the shop last week to check out some backpacks and prices. Made a short list and at home kind of made up my mind on which one I was gonna buy. Well … that did not exactly happen when I got back in the store yesterday. I started doubting my choice and started trying out other backpacks, bad idea I know but in the end after about 1 hour I found myself a backpack that I like, wasn’t to expensive and is big enough for the all the stuff I wanna bring along. It’s gonna be half full but at least I know everything will fit and I will have enough space to buy stuff in China and it will fit in my backpack.

This morning (Tuesday 5th Aug.) my gf left Dutchland to head off to BJ, yep she’s gonna be there half a week earlier than me. Well c’est la vie as they say, I’ll meet up with her next week Monday. I’m really looking forward to going this Sunday. Well now that I finally have my backpack I can really start packing and buying the last stuff for my trip to China.

T-minus 6 days and counting …

So we were quite excited and started checking out where the different venues are. Sadly I won’t be in BJ for the rowing but I will be for all the other sports. We also found out that the tickets for tennis are tickets for FINAL matches !!! Yeah … imagine that, me and my gf at the tennis finals. SWEEET !!! Anyway, I was already looking forward to going to BJ but now really anxiously looking forward to being in BJ and can’t wait to fly out next week Sunday.

Yeah, next week Sunday already. It seems so far away yet it isn’t.  Well that’s it for now, gonna get ready to meet my friends tonight. We’re gonna play tennis so that’s going to be fun. I haven’t played since I left for BJ a year ago.