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Hello everyone,
Jin nian Kuai le (happy new year)!! I hope everyone had a great time sending off 2011 in style!! I was in cold cold Harbin (the very northern part of China) with my friend Gina and 8 other people all on the same tour as me! I had a fantastic time, and have shared many of my pictures in the photo section of the blog!!
Walking in a Winter Wonderland: First of all, I must say that it's a wonder we even managed to go to Harbin, as the Chinese government decided to change the dates of the school holiday 19 days prior. We had of course already booked tickets, which clashed with the new term dates! I was massively annoyed at the situation, made worse by everyone else's (aka: Chinese teachers) indifference to the situation. Lol. They had all been messed around by the date change too, but said it was very normal in China, and that they would have to rearrange their plans! I couldn't believe their attitude, as it would be soo different in the UK. Lol. There would be teacher riots and protests up and down the British isles. Lol.
So, the trip started on Friday. We toke a sleeper train overnight to Yabuli, which would be our first stop! Here we would visit the famous Yabuli Ski Resort! We were told it was the biggest in the whole of Asia. We were all inexperienced skiers but had a great time attempting to negotiate the slopes surrounded by many other hopeless Chinese people. I am very proud of myself, as usually I am completely inept when it comes to skiing - but this time I managed several of the downhill slopes, and didn't fall over once! I was gutted when we had to stop to be honest, but I was excited to move on to our next activity… which was …..Riding in a horse sleigh through the forest!! The trip was fantastic, and the view from the sleigh was beautiful. We rode through to see some traditional Yabuli houses, and we even visited an old robber outpost. Everyone laughed when I went to walk over to the door to open up the outpost when a man dressed as a robber burst out of the door, I nearly flew over onto my ass - as it was so icy!! - but I kept my composure. He was shouting Chinese at me, so I retorted calmly and patronizingly "Ni Hao, Ni jiao shenme mingze" which means, "Hello, what is your name?". He broke into a huge smile and from then on wouldn't leave me alone. Lol.
After Yabuli, we ventured to Harbin - the capital of Heilongjiang Province. I instantly fell for the city as it had a great atmosphere!! It seemed like a very very very very cold much smaller New York. Let me just stop to emphasise how cold this trip was…. I have NEVER been this cold in my entire life!! I was wearing 3 jumpers, 1 coat and 3 t-shirts and still felt freezing. Any exposed flesh went bright pink, and felt alien to me. I rarely could feel my fingers and toes, it was polar!!! Every day our tour guide would tell us the temperature in the morning , which made matters worse. The first day was -25oc, the second -23oc!
Anywho, back to Harbin… We were only really there for 1 full day and 1 night. It was a shame as I would love to have explored more of the city. The archecture was very Russian / European in design - and they had huge ice sculptures all over the streets, it is so cold there - that they won't have trouble keeping them from melting - I can guarantee it! Lol.
Here we visited many things, a tiger reserve (full of many Manchurian region tigers - native to the area).. it also had a few white lions, ligers and tigers which I thought looked interesting. I did feel that their enclosures were very small however, a feeling that continued when we went to visit Polarland - a seaworld centre. Here we saw polar bears, beluga whales, sea lions, seals and penguins. All in ridiculously small cages, I felt. The best thing about this park however, was the incredibly cheesy (so bad it became good again) beluga whale show with humans. They danced together, whilst kissing and embracing - to the music of Titanic. Hahahaha~~! All the chinese lapped it up, and there were even girls crying in the audience!! Very slushy. Lol. I just kept laughing!!!
After this our final stop was the 13th Annual Harbin Ice and Snow Festival!! This for me, was the highlight of the trip, and was the reason I wanted to go to Harbin. It was beautiful!! I don't think my pictures do it justice at all. My mum's camera couldn't stand the cold, and the battery stopped working - even though it was fully charged.. this became a common problem with everyone's technology as it was so bitterly cold outside! :s
The Ice and Snow Festival was basically thousands of pounds of ice made into sculptures of buildings and monuments, all lit with neon lights. It was really spectacular. Me and Gina enjoyed walking around very slowly, as it was soo slippery and taking pictures - whilst also going on several of the ice-slides that they had created. It was amazing and I would urge people to go.. as it is world famous and worth seeing!! This was the culmination of our trip, so from there we boarded an overnight train back to Beijing - laughing and joking half in English and half in Chinese. I had joined an all Chinese tour group , luckily I know I bit of Chinese and they know a bit of English - so we were all able to have basic conversation. I did however, often switch off from conversations I couldn't understand - which was actually quiet nice.
Anywho, I must go now and re-learn how to make tea. I have obviously been away from England for faaaaaaaar too long as I just tried to make a tea for the first time in 5 months - and half filled the mug with milk!!!
Speak to you later,
Love Love Emma x
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