After a long time of thinking, considering pros and cons, and asking Tamar’s teachers at school, we took the decision: ‘We go to Beijing together!’ It is very exciting for us and a lot to organize: flights, Richards work, Tamar’s school, vaccinations, extra bed in the hotel room etc…
So on the 16th of September we went by train to Amsterdam and flew to Beijing! Tamar was very excited to fly with Naomi and Cindy.
10 hours and 10 minutes on the plane. For Tamar it was the first time out of Europe. The flight went really well. Some sleeping, some games with Cindy and Naomi and Pippi Longstockings on DVD.
On the weblog “Tamar in Beijing” which Richard and Tamar worked on together every day, you can see what we did together in Beijing (click on the link to see more photo’s and get an impression). The weblog was made for family, friends and very important for Tamar: to keep contact with Tamar’s class and her teachers. This worked out very well. The class was able to look every day on the weblog and put a question in the reaction like: ‘How do Chinese cars look like?’ The weblog is also possible to read in English (the translation, via Google-translate, is not the best but still…).
The tour was very busy. We had many rehearsals and concerts and in between: Forbidden city, Summer palace, Lama temple, Beijing zoo, Tiananmen square, Hutongs, Great wall, eating and swimming in the pool of the hotel. Luckily we all could sleep well and didn’t really have problems with a jetlag. In the brakes and before or after the concerts, there were a lot of exchanges from experiences and information where to go. After the concerts Cindy and I mostly went back to the hotel to have a beer with Richard in the bathroom of our room while Tamar was in sweet dreams. We looked at the photo’s and the weblog together and we talked about the day. This was always really nice.
It was wonderful to play all sold out concerts for such an enthusiastic Chinese public. Claudio Abbado was very inspiring with all the LFO concerts: Mahler 1 and Mahler 4 and the Prokofiev piano concerto with Yuja Wang and Mozart aria’s with Rachel Harnisch. The MCO concert was conducted by Tan Dun: Haydn’s symphony 1, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola with Kolja Blacher and Wolfram Christ. They played beautiful! And after the brake Takemitsu’s Three Film Scores and Earth Concerto composed by Tan Dun, our conductor. This was a fantastic piece with Chinese soloists which played on ceramic instruments. Very impressive.
Very satisfied and tired we flew back to Amsterdam. This has been one of the most remarkable tours we did together.
