Life in the city

Japanese, hamburgers and Irish restaurants

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Trying new and established restaurants in Beijing

No, I do not only eat at Morel’s Restaurant! Been trying Japanese, hamburgers and Irish restaurants in Beijing.
After a a long time back to Paddy O’Shea’s, the well-known Irish pub on Dongzhimenwai. See their website: http://paddyosheasbeijing.com/

This time to watch the Tuesday Comedy Live, pretty entertaining. Mostly full. Food is OK, not haute cuisine but lots of good beer.

Japanese in Aikiya

Aikiya Japanese Restaurant (合气屋日餐 in Chinese) is at the back of the former German restaurant on Gongti Dong Lu. Interesting decoration, very Japanese. The snacks at the door are free, must eat there. Not sure about the English name, it is a Google translation.

Food was good and price reasonable. We enjoyed!

New hamburger place

We finally made it to Shake Shack, the new hamburger joint in Taikoo Li in Sanlitun, close to the new Apple shop.

In the first weeks, often long queues, so we waited till things calmed down. Supposed to be a famous chain in USA. The hamburgers were juicy and tasty. Not really cheap. Service at the counters efficient, quick and friendly.

Beijing Rotary in 2019 (part 2)

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

A look back to 2019

See the previous part. Here comes Beijing Rotary in 2019 (part 2).

More to come about our activities in 2020.

Our SR Richard

As mentioned earlier we have a “Special Representative”. See here his previous visit on 5 November 2019.
That was with Jonathan as our club president. We also had Rotaractors joining.

And see the pics of our lunch on 12 November 2019.

UNHCR presentation

During our lunch in Kempinski on 26 November 2019 we had a presentation by UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees), Ms. Margriet Veenma, Senior Protection Officer (Leiden University, Netherlands). See their recent update:
https://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR%20China%20Fact%20Sheet%20March%202020.pdf
or here: UNHCR China Fact Sheet March 2020

Margriet introduced UNHCR’s global efforts assisting refugees and asylum seekers in China. Based in Beijing she was previously assigned to territories including DR Congo, Egypt, Pakistan and Sudan.

Rtn Viktor brought several banners from his trip in Germany (Berlin and Leipzig), Rtn Martin introduced the club Kauniainen – Grankulla of Finland.

We also had a visitor Rtn James of the club of The Hague Metropolitan (Netherlands).

Finally a cake

I complained that every year the December birthday boys and girls don’t get the birthday cake. This year, yes I had a BIG one, during the lunch on 17 December 2019. No speaker that day.

Thank you!

Beijing Rotary in 2019

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

A look back to Beijing Rotary in 2019.

Yes, I am finally cleaning up my pictures. More to follow. This is part 1.
Our Rotary Club of Beijing was pretty active in 2019 when the dreaded virus had not yet messed up our lives.

Different locations

We usually have our weekly meetings in a private room in the Beijing Kempinski Hotel but we do change at times.

See here some of the different locations, such as our evening in Legend Beer (27 April 2019), Via Roma in Kempinski (6 August 2019), Hotel Chao in Gongti Dong Lu (27 August 2019), and Paulaner in Kempinski (2 July 2019).

Kempinski lunch 29 October 2019

The speaker of the day was Humana People to People, Michael Hermann, chief representative.

Humana People to People China is a development organization, started in 2005 in cooperation with the Yunnan Government Poverty Alleviation Bureau with the aim to create development in poverty areas of China. On 23.07.2010 the organization registered at the Civil Affairs Bureau of Yunnan Province as a foreign background non-profit organization.
See: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-hermann-58058917/

About Michael Hermann, in German:
Der 63-jährige Michael Hermann arbeitet seit nunmehr 15 Jahren als freiwilliger Helfer in Südwestchina. Als Vertreter der Hilfsorganisation „Humana People to People (HPP)“ setzt er sich dafür, Kindertagesstätten für Vorschulkinder in den Bergdörfern der Provinz Yunnan einzurichten, um den Teufelskreis der Armut zu zerstören.
http://www.bjrundschau.com/Meinungen/202010/t20201019_800223982.html

A gorgeous BBQ

Thanks to Rtn Till of the Hyatt Regency in Wangjing a vast number of Rotarians and Rotaractors turned up to enjoy the sumptuous BBQ buffet.

Looking back at those pictures, sad to see how many of our friends left Beijing and how much the virus has changed our social life.

World Bank talk in Rotary Club of Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Rotary lunch 25 August 2020

During our lunch in the Kempinski Hotel Liangmaqiao we had a World Bank talk in Rotary Club of Beijing by our new member Ben, to speak about a fascinating subject:
“China’ s infrastructure development – lessons and practices”

China has had a spectacular success in developing a massive infrastructure that has generated rapid economic growth and helped to lift 800 million out of poverty.
Many developing and emerging countries seek to understand how China was able to finance and develop such large-scale infrastructure.

Ben Reja, World Bank Practice Manager for Transport Infrastructure based in Beijing, discussed China’s model of infrastructure financing and how the World Bank has been supporting various local governments to build up their infrastructure in an environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable way.

New members

Not only the World Bank talk that day, we were also happy to see two new members, Christin and Ben, being officially inducted.
The Rotary Club of Beijing is sparing no efforts to attract new members to serve the community.

2020 is a tough year

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

My Jenny Lou is closed

2020 is a tough year for many businesses in Beijing, too many to mention. Some are simply the victim of the wave of destruction in Beijing, in particular in my gongti area (Worker’s Stadium), for others it is the impact of COVID-19.

My favorite Jenny Lou decided to close, it was in front of Buona Bocca and Mala Bocca (Xindong Lu, the small street of Jiamei Dental), see how it looked like in February 2020. Reason: too few foreign customers… as many cannot be back.

Another victim is Cafe de la Poste, was in operation for some 15 years.

Gongti destruction

As posted earlier, most within the gongti area is to be razed.

See here an update with the buildings on the north side being demolished, the coffeeshop also marked “to destroy”, Superlife biting the dust and our beloved Legend Beer and Laburnum Thai Restaurant being smashed to pieces. The whole gongti area is becoming very flat…

See the date of the picture.
It seems some buildings will be spared (IQIYI and the “hotel”) but who knows… Also the fate of (formerly called) Gongti Yibai (Gongti 100 see how it was originally https://www.frommers.com/destinations/beijing/active-pursuits) remains unclear but Club One Third is still making a mess of the traffic in the street till early morning hours.