Yeah, people like to rub it in that I had again a birthday. So, we had (one more) big lamb dinner at home, mostly with Chinese friends.
Then, we all went to “my” karaoke, after warning the owner Michael of a possible invasion. We ended up basically taking over the place that is in Soho Shangdu (secret location, hahaha, you need to ask me!), next to The Place. It’s actually a Japanese style KTV, one big room where all sit and sing. Big fun, as you often make new friends. Not like those Chinese KTV where all are locked up in private rooms (only good if you are up to no good?). And there are many English songs.
The girls in the karaoke are all very nice (they get rewarded by my decent neck massage, they wait in line for it).

We had a lot of fun, our friends from Inner Mongolia had a good time, sang a lot and so did many of us (yeah, me included). Thanks to Renaat Morel and Wilfried we had a nice ice cake, more champagne, plus a cake from Michael.
The star of the night was Wilfried who played his guitar (and made us dance).
I had also brought champagne. If the pictures are a bit blurry, it’s not because we drank too much…. we SMOKED too much.
Thanks to all for sharing this (thinking about Rens and his wife!) plus all the girls.
The lamb dinner was the second one… We had another on 26 December with our friends from Israel (and others). Again the action was in the kitchen.

For me it was – “December, the cutting month”.

As I did not make it to the USA (again) this time, we had our traditional Christmas Eve party at home. As usual, Sun overdid herself, making the best turkey in the world plus many other dishes. The only complaint was – that most ate too much. Sun got precious help from our two maids (one actually works somewhere else but always comes to visit and help us), our Xiao Li and Xiao Xiao Li.
We reached only 35 people as a group was stranded in the snow on its way from Inner Mongolia, other were caught in last minute work and others had their car out of action. Anyway we had an international crowd from Belgium, Holland, France, UK, Canada, Hong Kong, USA as well as a group from Israel plus the usual Chinese friends.

Seems all the action took place in the kitchen, the battle of the turkey. For the rest of the evening I was too busy cutting turkey, playing barman and drinking my fair share. The empty bottles count not be counted. Little was left of the 13 pound USA turkey plus 4Kg of stuffing. So, only a few pics, maybe later I get more.
Thanks to all, by midnight the whole office was cleaned up, all furniture and desks back to their original position!
Thanks to all for the company, the deserts, the many bottles of wine and other.

We took part in the launch of the German Oktober Bierfest in Beijing, in the grandiose Drei Kronen 1308 Brauhaus. Lots of beer (German, of course), but also together with our friend Charles Dukes, who took some great shots…

Thanks Charles!

I uploaded new great pics received from Wilfried! See the updated post:
https://blog.strategy4china.com/?p=2059

Bye bye what was left of 2008. The Year of the Rat (I just learned I am an Earth Rat) is gone, a pretty soso year. Hopefully the Ox will bring better times.
We are recovering from our home party, some invited guests were kidnapped by enthusiastic (Chinese) in-laws and others had last-minute professional priorities but we still had a very diverse and happy crowd, dominated by Chinese but Belgium (including our ambassador!), Sweden, Norway, USA, Germany, France, UK and Malaysia sent in the troops to balance the crowd.

Guests apparently enjoyed the international food, including meatloaf, duck filled with chicken, Brazilian feijoada, etc. They also helped us to empty a bit our reserves of wine and beer.
The hard core sipped champagne (lots) till well after 2am (or something like that, hey, I was tired!) in our living room, watching the wonderful and deafening fireworks all around us. Hell braking lose in the Gongti Strip for hours in a row. Incredible view from our living room window. We just wondered how much money literally went up in smoke. Not much recession in the air it seems…
Thanks to all our friends and family who made this a great evening and thanks for all the nice goodies you brought!
[note: any other pics I will receive later will be added to this picture gallery – first edition 26 Jan, updated with 18 extra pics from Wilfried on 2 Feb]