After a brilliant but exhausting month in Thailand, I was glad to have a week to chill at home before Mum came out to visit. Thankfully, having a cold gave me the excuse to lie in bed all week, watching Breaking Bad and the whole season 4 of Downton Abbey haha. But on Friday 17th January it was finallllly time to move, so I dragged myself out the flat and got on the train to Beijing - Mum was coming, wheeey! I arrived in BJ, checked into the Crowne Plaza, had a long, relaxing bath and went to bed, excited to see Mum the next morning.

I planned on getting up in time for Mum's arrival, but got the timings wrong and so she ended up knocking on the bedroom door whilst I was still asleep, at around 6.30am. I got up, confused, extremely dehydrated and half naked, as our hotel room was BOILING, and stumbled to the door, tripping over several times on the way. But confusion was replaced with joy when I opened the door to see Mum there - she'd arrived, woo! After nattering away excitedly for a while, we decided to head out for breakfast, which ended up being McCafe, I'm afraid, due to lack of other options. We had a chilled morning in the hotel; I opened my Christmas stocking(!) and we used the pool and the sauna. As we'd already done Beijing's major sights when we visited as a family in 2007(?), we didn't feel the need to rush around seeing stuff, so instead took things at a leisurely pace. Later that afternoon we got a taxi over to the hutong area north of the Forbidden City, where we visited Prince Gong's mansion. It was ok- nothing that spectacular but quite nice to walk around as it was an unusually sunny and smog-less day. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was late afternoon and time for that massage we'd been daydreaming about since Mum had arrived. After some top-notch haggling from me, we got a good deal and headed in for an awesome full-body oil massage. The day was brought to a perfect close when we headed to Beijing's most famous Peking Duck restaurant for, guess what, Peking Duck! Full of delicious food, we waddled back to the hotel where we had a restless and sweaty night's sleep in our sauna of a room.

The next day we were up at the crack of dawn - we were off to see Chairman Mao's body. Usually queues to get in snake up and down the vast Tiananmen Square, but I guess as it was the run up to Chinese New Year, it was almost empty and so we whizzed right in. It was much the same as going to see Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam -you get about 30 seconds of shuffling past the orangey, plastic-looking body. Weird. After all the excitement, plus the shock of an early start, we headed back for a nap. For lunch, I thought we'd try out a Lonely Planet recommendation - a small restaurant popular with locals, where the speciality was tripe. Mum had grown up eating tripe, and I will try absolutely anything, so we were both PUMPED for some tripe. Sadly, we were disappointed. Boiled and lumped on a plate with no sauce or seasoning, it tasted as grim as it looked. Still, the afternoon got a lot better; we had a nice stroll around the hutongs, and visited the drum and bell tower too. That evening, we had a delicious dinner before heading off the ballet! I saw online that "The Red Detachment of Women", one of Madam Mao's "Eight Model Operas/Ballets" that were allowed to be performed during the Cultural Revolution, was showing at China's National Theatre. I thought it would be an interesting cultural experience, and we both like ballet, so we booked tickets and went along. The National Theatre is an absolutely incredible building both outside and in - once you work out how to get in, that is. At one point we were considering swimming the moat that surrounds it, as we couldn't see the entrance anywhere! The ballet was interesting; the plot was nothing to shout about (typical 'oppressed peasants get liberated by the red army, woo' type thing), but the dancing was impressive and the militaristic style very different to the romantic ballets we're used to seeing in the West. It certainly stirred up a very patriotic mood in the crowd!

The next day, Monday, got off to a very slow start. We didn't even both leaving the hotel for breakfast, instead sharing half a Mars bar and an orange each, classy. We packed up and checked out at 11am, then walked to one of Beijing's Art Galleries where we saw some really good modern Chinese art, and had a lovely latte in the café too. At 12.30pm we met Lucy, my classmate who studies in Beijing, and took her to lunch at another of Lonely Planet's recommendations - this time, oily dumplings, sorry Lucy! After saying goodbye, Mum and I rushed back to the hotel to grab our bags, before getting a taxi to the train station. Sadly Mum's dream of going on a sleeper train in China wasn't to come true, as overnight sleepers to Harbin had sold out insanely quickly. But it wasn't too bad - we had lovely first class seats on the high-speed train, and the 8 hours flew past surprisingly quickly. We played cards, ate our pot noodle dinner (Mum seemed to find this really exciting for some reason), watched DVDs on my laptop, and dozed. We arrived in Harbin at the rather ghastly time of 12.30am, and of course, it was bloody freezing. After a long-than-necessary taxi ride (our driver kept getting lost - not cool), we finally arrived at the hotel, where we snuggled into our nice warm beds.

Breakfast was included at this hotel, so, excited for something more substantial than an orange and a Mars bar, we headed down to the restaurant the next morning. Sadly, it was all weird Chinese breakfast stuff. We ended up having stale bread, jam and a boiled egg…ew. After a rather disappointing breakfast, we headed back to our room to start the marathon task that was: getting dressed in Harbin. Maximum temperatures during the day were around -15, and at night it got down to -30, so we needed to wrap up warm. Seriously warm. Several pairs of long johns and thermal vests later, we were ready to leave. We spent out first morning wandering around town, which was lovely. Due to Harbin's close proximity to Russia, there are lots of Russian-style buildings, which gives the city an attractive, non-Chinese (sorry, but it's true) feel to it. The Church of St. Sofia was particularly lovely, as was the hot chocolate with extra whipped cream we had in a café overlooking it. Next stop was Harbin's gigantic river, which was entirely frozen over and full of fun and tacky ice-related activities. We got a horse and carriage across the river, and a cable car back. By midday, the cold was beginning to penetrate our many layers, so we took refuge in a restaurant and ordered a hot, oily fish dish to warm us up. We then went back to the hotel to de-thaw a little more, before getting the 4.30pm bus from our hotel to the event Mum had been looking forward to for years, and the main reason we'd come to Harbin: the Ice Festival. It was tacky but beautiful, very impressive in scale and, in some aspects, hilarious. Italy was represented by the coliseum, France by Versailles etc etc, and the UK...by a snow sculpture of Mr. Bean's head. Cheers. Wandering around these gigantic works of ice art was made even better by the fact Mum kept slipping and falling over. She kept demanding sympathy, but it was just too hilarious not to laugh - especially when she couldn't get up. Hah. After a surreal but thoroughly enjoyable 2 hours, the bus took us back to town, where we gorged on a dinner of dumplings before heading back to the hotel to watch a DVD and head to sleep.

Wednesday began with another rather foul breakfast in the hotel, before heading off to Harbin's other main snow/ice-based attraction: the Snow Sculpture park. It was lovely; the sun was shining and Mum fell over several more times, causing my ribs to ache from laughing. We wandered around admiring the snow sculptures, and also going down an ice slide on a rubber ring, which was great fun. The afternoon took a more serious turn; we got a taxi a good 40 minutes out of town to Unit 731, a War Crimes Museum located in the old building used for biological and chemical warfare research and development by the Japanese Imperial Army. As you can probably guess, it was pretty shocking and depressing - I won't recount the details here. After a rather chaotic taxi drive back, we snuggled up in Mum's bed and watched the Murray v Federer Australian Open match on the TV. At one point I managed to fall off and wedge myself between our two single beds - Mum took this as karma for my giggling at her falling over, and so delayed helping me up so she could laugh at me some more. Meanie. Dinner was interesting; we headed to a Russian restaurant that was recommended by many and was always full. The food was delicious (especially the lamb shank in red wine sauce, nom nom), but the service was hilariously bad. Still, it was an experience and a nice way to spend out last night in Harbin!

The next day was fairly uneventful - we had breakfast in a local café, not being able to face stale bread and boiled eggs again. Then it was taxi to the airport and a flight to Qingdao! I was sat in between Mum and this old, fidgety Chinese man, who snorted every 3 seconds and guzzled up his food and drink so quickly it was like he hadn't eaten in years. At least he didn't spit. We arrived in Qingdao late afternoon, and after a little rest, we went for a walk down to the marina, where we had a Qingdao beer. We had dinner at Diner 22, a lovely Western restaurant near my flat that I'd never actually been to before as I am, well, stingy. But Mum was here, so three-course meal with wine it was, woo! All in all, a gorgeous meal, the only incident being when Mum managed to bash her head on the toilet door handle whilst going to squat down; she just hasn't got the technique. Was pretty hilarious though when she came back from the loo with an egg-shaped bump on her head, silly thing.

Friday was spent pottering about Qingdao. After a delicious croissant and coffee for breakfast, we attempted to visit the former German Governor's house in the old part of town, but it was closed for renovation. Still, we had a nice, long walk along the coast, stopping for a coffee along the way. I took Mum to have donkey burger for lunch, and then we had the laziest afternoon… We went back to my flat, snuggled up in my large, but very hard bed and watched "The Way We Live Now" haha. At around 6.30pm we headed to Mum's hotel so she could change, buying some cans of beer to drink on the way, classy. We headed out for dinner later with Saul, which was lovely.

On Saturday I took Mum to the massage place I always go on about, which I think she enjoyed?! Then we headed off for a nice big brunch before getting a midday train to Beijing. Qingdao train station was HEAVING… guess that's to be expected the weekend before Chinese New Year! The man in the seat in front of us took quite a shining to Mum - he kept bringing her cups of boiled water and standing over us, staring as we played a few hands of rummy. It was a bit off-putting really! 5 hours later and we had arrived back in Beijing. We quickly checked back in to the Crowne Plaza, changed, then headed out again for dinner; we'd reserved a table at a small but apparently excellent Italian restaurant in the hutongs for 8.45pm. We ended up arriving a bit early and our table wasn't ready, so we headed to a nearby bar for what turned out to the biggest G&Ts I've ever seen in my life. After downing as much as we could, we headed back for our delicious meal, which included handmade pasta and some of the best panacotta I've ever tasted. More importantly, we drank lots and lots of prosseco! We merrily ate and drank the evening away, stumbling into a taxi afterwards.

We woke up feeling a tad worse for wear the next day - perfect when you're about to get on a long haul flight! We had an enormous breakfast in the hotel, in anticipation of bad plane food. By 9am, Mum was all packed up and ready to go - we had a rather teary farewell outside the hotel, with the concierge standing over us looking a bit bemused, before she climbed into a taxi and headed home. I was obviously very sad to see her go, but I couldn't have asked for a better week.

I decided I needed to make the most out of being a nice hotel until 12pm, so I went back up to my room for a luxurious bath and a nice nap. Woke up just before 12pm, hurriedly gathered my stuff together and checked out in the nick of time.

When we'd met up with Lucy the week before she suggested taking me skiing one day, as there's somewhere just on the outskirts of Beijing you can go. I thought this sounded like fun - so decided to tack it on to the end of my travels with Mum, seeing as I'd be in Beijing anyway. Plus it would be a nice way of cheering me up after she left. So I headed to Lucy's that afternoon, we were chatted, chilled and watched numerous episodes of "Orphan Black" before meeting up with some of our other classmates for a pizza meal that evening.

The next day we got up early and got the shuttle bus 40 minutes to the ski resort. This was my first ever time skiing, so poor Lucy had to tell me how to do everything -including how to put all the bloomin gear on! That finally sorted, it was time to hit the slopes. I was far calmer than I thought I'd be, and what with Lucy's expert teaching, I was skiing fairly confidently fairly quickly. I'm obviously no pro, but I thought I'd spend 90% of the time on my bum, so I was proud. In fact, I only fell over 3 times in the whole day, and one of them wasn't even my fault - some idiot skied into me and knocked me down haha. All in all it was a really fun day, and it was the perfect place to learn. Plus it was so cheap - around £40/50 for the whole day including bus, renting the entire gear and ski pass! We were exhausted when we got back, so we collapsed in front of more "Orphan Black" and went out to a local Japanese restaurant for dinner. The next day I had a nice long lie in, before heading back to the train station, and to Qingdao.

I had one day at home to recover from the amazing but exhausting past week and a half, and then I was back off to the train station for some Chinese New Year adventures - see next blog post! Sorry this was such a long one…!