So I travelled to the UK to see my Chinese family, and an old friend that I met a long time ago in France, Sebastien and his wife Marie, & their young son Ethan.

UK – Oxford Lemington Spa

Sebastien’s accent has changed a lot, he is French, but speaks very good English, and has studied in Sweden and now works in the UK, specifically at the Jaguar Landrover (JLR) offices in Lemington Spa.

His accent is now a little weird mix of English, South African and a few other things, but he has no French accent left.  I guess due to the mixed group of people he works with.  He is now ‘Subject Matter Expert’ for fluid dynamics for the aerodynamics for Jaguar & Landrover.   Pretty impressive and he described exactly what he does.. all very interesting.

Marie seems to be doing well, and is also working at JLR in merchandising.

Ethan is a cute little kid about 1.5 years old now, he seemed very tired when I was there though.

I managed to catch up with ‘my Chinese family’,  and the 2 that were there are both doing well.  I’m not giving much information on them, because of privacy issues, but the son is doing well at school and with his tennis, for which he trains very hard almost every day, and definitely has the potential to go professional.

I managed to have a few good conversations with the mum as well.

Good to see them both in a pleasant situation, as last time I saw them I was sitting in a wheelchair and had just taken an oxy-codone … so maybe we didn’t have the greatest conversation.

One thing that I realise when I go to the UK each time, is that I’m very glad that my parents decided to immigrate to Australia before I was born.  The weather, and this overwhelming feeling of depression is a little overwhelming in the UK, and its apparent from the very 1st time you touch down. 

Grey skies, constantly drizzling, or threatening to… and I think the people around you seem to feel it too, which doesn’t influence your mood in the best way.

At Gatwick airport, Buy Buy Buy! People buying needless crap at every turn

The other thing is, that the UK seems to be incredibly capitalistic.  Everything costs money.

I only visited Oxford & Lemington Spa this time, but you want to enter a park, you have to buy a ticket, you want to visit some part of a university, ticket, you go to a café with really bad service… oh here’s a 12% service charge.  No… that’s the price of the coffee included.  Its normally only in the USA where you need tipping, or forced tipping…because their rules minimum wages are crap….and they’ve been surviving with this crappy ad-hoc system for decades, that doesn’t mean others should copy such a crap system.

Trains are privatised… I didn’t know that,… and as such are pretty expensive, and there are peak times and non-peak times.  …oh yeah, they just raise the prices…because they know that they can.  Hey that’s cool.  (or Not)

People seem to judge each other by what car they have, or their status in terms of money… it’s all a bit sad to be honest.  The mum of my Chinese family, she had that when she 1st moved, a couple of people in her building shunned her because she didn’t have a car, and used to walk everywhere, then when she got a Range Rover Sport, apparently they all warmed up to her, …what a bunch of creeps.

A person should not be judged on how much money they flaunt.  That’s rather sad in my opinion.

Also there are a lot of homeless people in the UK, like a lot.  I really thought the UK’s social security system was good… but maybe I was wrong on that.

It’s also painfully apparent that many things about life in the UK, is just about looking at the news, talking about the news…of things by the way that completely don’t affect one’s life …  all of this completely drives conversation in the UK.  It’s very weird for me and thus so arbitrary considering that there are way better things than comparing oneself to people that have no impact in your life or others.

It’s nice to see relatives of mine like David & Liz that are so upbeat about everything and have not been dragged down by everything that seems to be mainly what the UK is about.  I will catch up with them in a couple of day’s time.

I did also managed to catch up with my Uncle Mark, Auntie Hazel, and cousin Nicola, which was very nice.  I really didn’t think I’d have time to see them because so many people are busy, and they were constantly travelling, but I think my mum had something to do with getting in contact with them and pushing it to happen, which was very nice of her.

France- Bordeaux

Ok so I’ve been to Bordeaux a few times before to see Pierre, but this time was a bit different, with Pierre’s suggestion of come for a longer time, really relax and try out a different pace of life.

And it was great!

The 1st 4 days I stayed with my good friend Maxime & his fiancé Eva, in their new home that they’ve moved into.
I met Maxime in in Beijing whilst working for Akryl, and of course Eva after that.
Its really nice to meet people that I knew well in Beijing back in their home countries.

An amazing photo taken by Eva

I spent these days exploring Bordeaux city walking around and catching trams with Eva, and it was really nice. We practiced our French a bit, did a lot of cooking, bought some luxury stuff for her little home business and practiced Chinese a lot. In fact I think the time that I spent with them is the most Chinese I’ve spoken since being in Europe.  It was very nice.  

Oh yeah, and we even had some Lan zhou niu rou la mian 兰州牛肉拉面. An old favourite that I used to have in Beijing.

Oh and we also went to Dune du Pilat, a nice tourist destination of basically a very large sand dune with great views.

   

Then Pierre came back from a business trip to China, and I spent some time with him.

Peaceful setting of Louis’ place. Reminds me a lot of Denmark in WA

We travelled to Cap Ferret, where his mum and brother both live, caught up with Louis (his brother) had a couple of drinks, did some exploring and went fishing a few times.  All very relaxing. And then on a 2nd time there stayed with his mum and did some more fishing.

 

I think it’s really nice that Pierre and his brother are very close, and have some of the same hobbies, specifically boating and fishing, and so can share this together very easily.

Tarama!

Towards the end Pierre organised a wine tasting for Maxime and Eva for wines for their wedding selection.  We had French style aperitif…so saucisson, cheese, tarama (salmon fish egg dip thing that is bright pink), baguettes, all really nice, and drank a lot of wine.  And when the wine tasting was officially done, we were all feeling quite happy from the copious amounts of drunk wine that we danced like crazy people and it was great.

Oh yeah, also brought the drone with me and took some nice drone footage of Cap Ferret at the beach, which I’ll put up soon.

Here’s some other pictures of either nice things we saw or did.

I went to check out some wine areas with Pierre

More nice pictures of fishing with Pierre & Louis, we ended up going out twice and on the 2nd time catching 16 fish. Click on any of these pictures to start the gallery.

Walking around town with Eva, click on these to see a scrolling gallery.

Going to a Halloween party with Maxime, Eva & his family

Going to the beach with Pierre & Louis in Cap Feret

Some more drone photos