2009
en images
in pictures
in fotos
in pictures
in fotos
| A business lunch in the remarkably well-restored medieval town of Perouges, just north of Lyon, France. May 14 |
| Our basement Moroccan dining room transforms into a gym. Coast Salish bear transformation design by Maynard Johnnie Jr. May 30 |
| A walk around Senlis, on the way home from a meeting near Paris. June 5 |
| A course in Marketing and Sustainability at the HEC business school near Paris feels more like an episode of "Sex and the City" That would make me "Stanford", not "Big". June 18-19 |
| A weekend touring Paris by bike with the local and amazing "Vélib" bike system. I eat perfect croissants while writing a postcard to my niece Lauren who was in Nicaragua. We visit the limited Northwest coast collection at the Musée Branly, and see all sorts of things at bike level you just wouldn't see when taking the metro. June 20-21 |
| The latest addition to the household, a portrait from 1817 by Devouge, a student of Jacques-Louis David. The subject is likely a merchant or blockade runner, or an officer of the Napoleonic feet June 30 |
| Ten of us take kayaks down the Lesse river in southern Belgium. We enjoy the scenery and survive trips down two waterfalls, but Thibault has a run-in with his ice cream. June 28 |
| We climb to the bell tower in Diest, then later relax in Gisele and Raymond's pool before heading to Paul's annual birthday bash. July 5 |
| Els celebrates her birthday, and in honour of the 4th of July gives the event an American theme. Her mother's new kitten shows up to steal the show. July 4 |
| Piet cools off, watching the pigeons intently from our balcony. July 5 |
| The beer may have been from Bruges, but the action was on the streets of Ghent for the annual 10-day Gentse Feesten street party. We sing and sway along to Eddie Wally's inimitable schlager style. A great way to spend the national holiday. July 21 |
| And now for something completely different! I head to Japan a day early to get a better fare, and spend a nice Sunday walking around Nikko, a few hours by train north of Tokyo. A beautiful natural setting and a grouping of mausoleums, temples and shrines that basically form a 17th-century Tokugawa Disneyland. People seemed much more interested in the virtuous monkeys and sleeping kitten than in the great Shogun who unified Japan and then decided to isolate it from the rest of the world for the next few hundred years. Poking around Asakusa afterwards I come across some ice cream flavours that were almost as exotic and brightly coloured as the sights in Nikko. July 26 |
| Moules parquées and Rodenbach, one of the tastier traditions of summer as we head to the Foire du Midi in Brussels during the first week of August. Aug 4 |
| Our summer holiday gets off to a great start in Hong Kong, where we take in the sights of both extremes of Lantau island: the Great Buddha and... Disneyland. Aug 9-10 |
| Sweating it out after some dim sum and a walk through the jungle on Cheung Chau island. We catch the hydrofoil to Macau, visit the tidy and informative little museum and enjoy the very Portuguese architecture. As night fell it was off to visit (but not play) at the casinos that have turned this first and last European colony in the Far East into the Las Vegas of China. Back to Hong Kong, where we had the pleasure of meeting Charles Wheeler for dinner. Aug 11-13 |