5061 Miles From Home

So here we are in Beijing! 

We have been here for nearly one month now. The time has flown by but the ‘Jing is beginning to feel a bit like home. 

I’d wanted to start this blog much earlier but mundane IT issues and the small matter of setting up home for the 5 of us got in the way. Hoping to post more regularly from now on. 

We arrived bleary eyed on the 24^th of October. We must have slept for 8 hours between all 5 of us on the plane so day one was a daze for everyone. We had over 15 HUGE bags that had to be taped up with masking tape en route to the airport as they started to split (my fault – hilariously stressful) that we piled into the taxi and made our way to our apartment. We are on the 3^rd floor with 4 bedrooms and a spacious living room but it was free-ee-zing. I spoke to reception who told us that Beijing’s heating hadn’t been turned on yet and we would need to wait a couple of weeks. Our first real culture shock and it was a cold realization that things were gonna be different here.  

The first few days were busy getting phones, bank accounts, groceries, crockery and furniture. Emma started work a few days after arriving and then it was time for Lyra and Arlo to visit their school. We all went in together and met their lovely teachers and their friendly class. Pretty quickly any worries that we had about them being left out as the newbies were replaced by a realization that the newest kid in class is a novelty that everyone wants a piece of! They are at the British School of Beijing which means they follow the British curriculum which has been great. The reading books are familiar (Biff and Chip!) and the methods of teaching are the same as home. Their teachers are Canadian and English and each class has a Chinese teaching assistant too.  What is different here obviously is their Chinese classes. Both Lyra and Arlo have really exceled at these and are already loving learning to speak Chinese with Granddad and have, crucially, established how to order an apple juice when eating out! We have found that English is not spoken anywhere really. 

Their class mates are very international, predominantly Chinese, but both have made friends from all over the world. Lyra has even been invited to her first birthday party! We have had a parents evening this week and everyone is happy with their progress and how they have made friends and a network. Getting to school we can scoot, walk or taxi but in a week or two my Wagon Bike will be delivered so all 3 kids will be strapped into the front of that and I’ll be peddling them all the way. This will mean we don’t have to negotiate crossing the roads that tend to be a stressful hybrid of ‘chicken’ and bulldog (but with cars and motorbikes). 

Us grown-ups have also made some friends. I went out with a couple of Dads from our apartment block last night for a few beers and an explore of our area of Beijing which was great fun. The other ex-pat families here are mainly all here due to one or both working at the Embassies. The area that we are living is near to the embassy district so maybe in other parts of the City there are other foreigners here for other reasons but not being attached to an embassy does kind of make us the outlier. 

Ezra and I have been going to a baby class where we have met some other lovely families. I am loving all my time looking after Ezzy and he is enjoying himself eating rice and insisting on walking everywhere. He’s even started to pick up some Chinese and says Xie Xie (thank you) to anyone that he can. Perhaps unsurprisingly he gets lots of attention when we are out. Always someone wants to look at him, take pictures of him, take pictures with him or pick him up. We have had people video call their friends and put him on the video call lots of times and restaurant staff try and feed him and pick him up for cuddles. He’s completely un-impressed and refuses any attempts to interact with him. As well as Ezra getting attention for his blonde hair, the fact that we have 3 kids is a huge deal here. It rarely goes without comment. People are overjoyed and give us lots of thumbs up that we have “san ge” (three children). In fact as we walk about most of the time you hear people passing remarking “san ge!”…“san ge!”. 

Emma has done amazing settling into her new job with a new team. There has been a big office move and an important business trip to Shanghai with trips to Tokyo and Guangzhou coming in the next few weeks. Suffice to say I’m a very proud husband; I think she’s incredible. 

Anyway. Ezzy is waking up so gotta go. Will try and post again soon!