Life in the city

Rotary Beijing in November

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Kempinski Hotel

Rotary Beijing in November started with a lunch in Kempinski Hotel, it was a special lunch for members only. Our Rotarian Daniel joined the meeting online from his quarantine in Shenyang. He briefed the members about the latest issues for our club.

Oil rigs

Definition: a structure above an oil well on land or in the sea that has special equipment attached to it for drilling and removing oil from the ground.

It was the word of the evening on 10 November 2020 when Tony told us about his 46 years on offshore oil rigs, his passion for it, anecdotes and special experiences (human and professional) in the many fascinating countries he worked in. Tony worked in so many countries I cannot remember… Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, North Sea, and many more.

His talk and our dinner were in Morel’s Restaurant, attended by members of the Rotary Club of Beijing and guests. Great talk that opened up a world few of us are familiar with.

Decoration in Morel’s Restaurant

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Flower shop?

Our Susan has a weakness for beautiful flowers and she uses her skills for the artful decoration in Morel’s Restaurant with a wide array of fresh flowers; all the arrangements are done by herself and no plastic flowers! All fresh!
See some of her bouquets and arrangements. One flower that stands out is the orange pincushion flower – I had to Google it to learn about it. Pretty expensive…

And she invented a vase with fake ice cubes – they look like it but it is done by … plastic bags in water. Clever!
Ladies also receive a special flower gift (if they are nice). Or, as I do, take it home for the wife who loves it!

Halloween came to Morel’s

Like every year Susan also puts up the decoration for Halloween, attracting the curiosity of Chinese onlookers who take pictures. Susan is part-time artist…

I contributed with the two big pumpkins, first serving as decoration and later for a delicious pumpkin soup!
This year nobody came painted as ghosts, I guess we already look scary enough without makeup. To be on the safe side and keep ghosts away I had a great red wine. Works.

Beijing Rotary in 2020 (part 2)

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Board meeting 10 July 2020

This final part 2 of Beijing Rotary in 2020, other reports were published earlier.
The Rotary Club of Beijing held a board meeting in Kitty & Daniel’s Grill and Bar, near The Place. An interesting decoration as you can see in the pictures, I guess they spent tons of money on it. I personally found the food good, some of my friends were less happy.

This time no zoom, all present!
I gave the impression eating most because … I love cleaning bones…

Some more Morel’s lunches

We had other lunches in Morel’s Restaurant on 2 and 9 June 2020.

Rotaract Sanlitun had a social in Legend Beer (RIP…) on 15 June.

Major donor

I was honored to receive the crystal and pin as Major Donor (level 1) to the Paul Harris Rotary Foundation Fund.

See: https://www.rotary.org/en/donate/recognition

Rotary dinner 13 October 2020

A nice dinner again in Morel’s Restaurant, well attended by Rotarians and guests. The speaker was Dr. Paul Rochon and the topic attracted many people who were not disappointed.
Paul talked to us about how to turn sleep in something to empower… dreams coming true?  hidden side of dreams? Maybe, but surely all about sleep as Paul with 2 masters and a Ph.D is a specialist in biopsychology and expert in everything related to sleep.

He focused on “sleep chronotypes”, see: https://engineeringsleep.com/chronotypes/
His website: http://engineeringsleep.com/
I actually did the tests he mentions, also contacted him about it.

I also gave the membership certificates to two of our new members.

Beijing Rotary in 2020

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Virus year

A good start, then Beijing Rotary in 2020 became the virus year. Obviously the operation of the Rotary Club of Beijing was severely affected.

Our last memorable event was once more in the Hyatt Regency Wangjing where General Manager Till arranged a great reception where Rotarians, Rotaractors and guest had a good time. Then…

ZOOM and Morel’s

Our Rotaract Club of Beijing maintained several meetings online, with ZOOM.

When Morel’s Restaurant restarted operation, I suggested to start there some unofficial lunches, all while respecting all health measures such as social distancing, registration and hand washing. The first lunch was on 14 April and some Rotaractors also joined.

The following lunch was on 21 April 2020.

 

We had a board meeting on 28 April, some in the meeting, most (like me) on ZOOM.
Then on 19 May and 26 May more lunches at Morel’s Restaurant.
Later we started again our regular lunches at the Beijing Kempinski Hotel.

More to report! This is part 1.

French and Middle East cuisine in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Exploring

Trying some French and Middle East cuisine in Beijing. Well, the “French” restaurant is not that French: Chez Soi, see earlier post. I had again the sausages, pretty good, on 6 October.

The promised Belgian Evening on 14 October was a bit disappointing, the French (lady) chef apologized that most items were not available. We had the Mitrailette sandwich, pretty OK, but the Cocotte de Poulet was served nearly cold (not long time enough in the microwave I guess).

They are now changing their so-called Belgian Day to Saturday. Not good for me!

Meza, Middle East

I went to say hello to chef Adel in his newly opened restaurant, east of the American Embassy. Nice interior. the food was good. Planning to return to explore more of the dishes.

I love that cuisine, many of the dishes you find in many countries, Israel, Lebanon, North Africa. The funny thing is I learned about it in São Paulo (Brazil): it was considered as some fast-food, very popular at lunch time.