你好 (Hello)

Time passed very fast the past week, going to China is getting close and real! My departure is coming closer to less then six weeks. I'm currently busy by running behind the closure of a complicated deal and simultaneously preparing my departure. This week I made good progress in the preparation. Since two weeks I was in touch with our travel agent in Canada to sort out the different alternatives to get to Xia'men and to come back. I compared departures from Brussels and from Paris, but at the end I decided to depart from Brussels and change flight in Beijing. The Paris routes had better departure times, but much longer connection times in Beijing or Shangai. Last week I also submitted my visa application at the Chinese embassy in Brussels. The friendly people at the embassy checked the application form, the invitation letter and my passport. They asked for a copy of my flight bookings, as I applied for a visa with a stay for more then 30 days. Four days later I returned to the embassy to collect my passport with the visa. So, I obtained my 60-day Business Visa! A new milestone reached, tickets booked and visa obtained!

Multiple of my immunizations were still up to date, but some of them are also still on my agenda. So far, I got the Polio booster and the first shot against Hepatitis A/B. The next two weeks I will get the immunization against Typhus and the second shot against Hepatitis A/B. The immunization against Flue will be given early October, about three weeks before departure.

In parallel I participated to our regular conference calls among the team members going to Xia’men. Seven people have booked their flights, and so far two of us obtained a visa. The logistics questions are a recurring point of discussion. It seems some people are struggling with logistics, although most is well documented. To get known each other a bit better we also played a short game, each of us submitted upfront a characteristic / curiosity about himself to the moderator and during the call we tried to guess to whom it fits. Of course, we also did serious preparation work, such as discussing the precautions to respect in the context of the anti-bribery law and how consultative behavior can help during the project execution. Finally, our local representative in Xia’men joined the call. She is sorting out the projects on which we will be working on. Eight projects will be selected, all of them with local small and medium enterprises. The shortlist of projects is finalizing and will be submitted for final approval at out NGO DOT and at IBM.

I will extend my stay in China to hang around, hoping to see some nice places. I drafted my itinerary for a trip towards Beijing, Xi’an, and aiming to visit Tibet. Here still a lot of work to do … while counting down the days to departure and practicing my basic knowledge of the Chinese language.

再见 (Goodbye)