Senlin Online

Senlin is Piet. How come, you might ask? Well, senlin is pinyin (a system for spelling the sounds of Chinese Mandarin) for forest.

This is the Chinese name I adopted when coming to this beautiful country in the summer of 1998.

Why forest? Because forest is my Dutch surname (Bos) translated into English.

Senlin online therefore is my online presence.

How did I end up in China?

Back in 1993/1994 I was on a 1.5yr trip, backpacking "around the world". One of the countries I visited (Oct./Nov. 1993) was China; more info about this trip on the travel pages. I traveled nothing more than the "pancake-trail", but at the time China left an unerasable impression.

Coming back to Rotterdam, The Netherlands after this long world trip and getting used to the "normal life" proved to be a very difficult task and I felt as if I were in the wrong place. After 3.5 yrs of trying hard, I knew that it was not going to work out, so I applied for a job as a tourleader for a Dutch travel agency. They sent me to China where I arrived on July 13, 1998.

After my 2nd tour I already knew that I wanted to stay in China, no matter what, so when the tourleading days came to an end after 2 seasons I decided to start a life in Beijing, where I have been living since December 1999.

What have I been doing in China?

During my days as a tourleader, which basically can be described as 'facility manager', I traveled to many places within China and 2 neighbouring countries.

A few tour highlights are the 30-day trip overland from Pakistan to Beijing, the 3 Gorges trip on the Yangtze river combined with the minorities in NW Guangxi Province and the 21-day trip in Vietnam, my last trip as a tourleader.

From January 2000 until March 2001 I worked for an international moving company in Beijing and the year after that I worked as business development manager for a Dutch company in the industry of value added services for (mobile) telephony.

During the latter year I also started to work on what became my longest fulltime profession until May 2007: YPHH Happy Networking.

With YPHH I have also done weekend tours to Inner Mongolia, Qufu and Tai'an, Beidaihe and a couple of day trips in and around Beijing.

End of 2006 I started a couple of new initiatives. It seemed a good idea to organize some trips to the snow during the winter, however the winter lasted very short, so I made some switches and came up with Beijing Day Trips that offers unique day trips in and around Beijjng. Early 2008 I gave this website a complete makeover.

Another venture I also started at the end of 2006 is Orange Hospitality Consulting. I started that "to fill the need for professional expertise in the hospitality and tourism industry in China"; have a look and you will find out more about it.

From November 2006 until May 2007 I also did my part in the nowadays very popular CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), in other words giving something back to the community. I taught English at a school in the west of Beijjing.

Since March 2007 I have started yet another new website: Homestay Beijing 2008, obviously aimed at the Olympic Games next year in Beijing. The website is a directory where I list profiles and pictures of homes that are available for homestay during the 15 days of the 29th Olympiad.

The latetst addition to my collection of websites is Beijing Live Music, a directory of all live music venues in Beijing with a calendar, addresses of the venues and even the exact locations of the venues on the first Beijing Live Music Map.

Interests, hobbies

Naturally i have a big interest in traveling, that's what brought me here and that probably will also be the reason for me leaving here eventually...

Due to my work, I have learned to program websites and I must say that I enjoy doing that. It's all with trial and error, never read a book about it (just read lots of online stuff) and it's something once started never to be finished I guess...

An activity that I have started lately is climbing. Not on rocks yet, just on a climbing wall near where I live. Great sport, need lots of will-power, endurance, concentration and of course a bit of strength in the hands/arms, but also legs (one rule of climbing is that you climb using them!).

Other things I like to do in my spare time are spending time with my girlfriend, listening to music, reading, watching movies, cooking (if my kitchen is clean) and spending time with friends.

Then there are some sports you cannot do in Beijing, so I can keep dreaming about them: sailing, wind-surfing, skiing, scuba-diving....