It's certainly deep into Winter now. Autumn came and went as fast as
ever and the heating (turned on by the government) had to be turned on
early this year as it got cold earlier in November that usual. Then we
had the marathon last week that began at 8.30am at about zero degrees;
i wrapped my legs in black sacks for the wait at the start line but
ended up keeping my gloves on for the whole race.
Today we froze our feet off at the German Embassy Christmas Fair in
order to drink some Gluhwein and eat some meat. It's always a fairly
cold yet fun occasion. We went with Ben, who became a father a few
weeks ago, so it was good to hear his stories of early fatherhood.
Then we went to a baby shower, where the father-to-be and I chatted
about impending fatherhood downstairs in Starbucks. Clearly a
recurring theme nowadays!
On that note, during a quick trip to Hong Kong, Hannah spent her first
night without her parents-- with her nanny, and all was fine
apparently. Not sure if nanny would tell us otherwise really unless
there was a serious problem. Then whilst Andrea remained in Hong Kong
for a few more days I had the baby at nights and we seem to have
managed to break the "waking up three or more times a night for a feed
from mum" routine, which is good. Now there's just some murmours for a
few minutes once or twice a night but no screaming and no need for
feeding. Let's hope it lasts!
The weather in Hong Kong was pretty miserable too; wet and foggy. The
views were awful so it was good we didn't hang around too long. It was
nice to see some colleagues and friends again. Some were off to a J-Lo
concert. I wonder how it went. We recently saw Elton John which was
somewhat disappointing. Maybe we just don't know enough of his old
music and when we heard it thought it was kind of all the same. When
he finally got going on the piano and kept his band quiet it was
better and more distinctive. Only the one Lion king song though which
was a shame. We also saw The Fray, one of my favorite bands at the
moment. They only have one album but its a corker and there was only a
few hundred of us in a small club. The only downside was that fully a
quarter of the audience seemed to want to record the whole thing on
their mobile phones so all the phones and lights around us somewhat
ruined the view and atmosphere.
A lot of major bands seem to be coming to China nowadays, though i'm
not sure they make that much money off of it. They only play a couple
of gigs, although many of the tickets are very expensive. I suppose
they often target foreigners, at least that was who had paid for the
expensive Elton John tickets and were up dancing around most of the
time. I'm not sure what they heard that we didn't but each to their
own!
Christmas fairs are a popular thing for all the foreigners in China.
All the major hotels have something with free food, tree lighting
things, carol singers and things. Then there are lots of charity fairs
selling second-hand things or other products that charities seem to
profit from to fund their activities. It's always worth going to a few
since there's not a lot else to do in the cold winter!
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