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Hello finally!
The last week has been utterly amazing so here's a little run down of what we have been up to...
Our arrival in Beijing was a cold one, but we settled ourselves into the hostel, booked our tickets to Harbin and had a 3 hour nap having not slept for around 36hours...! Our first day was spent wandering around the 'Temple of Heaven', which of course was covered in snow and lovely. There were oodles od people trying to clear the snow on plastic sheets - hefty work! One section was called the 'Echo Wall' and Dave and I stood at each side of the circular wall, unable to see each other, and had a full conversation :)
The hutongs in Beijing are so interesting and due to the season, perhaps, not too bustling, but filled with interesting little shops and faces. We have repeatedly munched our way through dumplings in little eateries, that are nothing to look at, but serve tasty food.
Anyway, the next day was spent strolling (and dancing) our way round Beihai Park before going sledging on the lake. This involved sitting on little seats with skis on the bottom and using giant metal needle-type-things to push our way across the ice - hillarious fun :)
The sleeper train to Harbin was relatively comfy and the city didn't seem too cold, suprisingly! Our time in Harbin, although nice was tainted as we couldn't seem to find anyone who could tell us where the main Ice Festival was based. As such we failed to see the main highlight the we trekked all the way for :( We did, however, saunter round the Snow Festival, which was amazing and the sculptures were so intricate. While in Harbin we met 2 Americans and 1 English guy, all working in China as teachers. It was great to have a drink with them and chat and hillarious to watch one of the Americans, Mark, get repeatedly drunk over the course of the day, starting with all of us having a horrible shot with them over breakfast!
We are currently in Chengde after having sat / stood on a packed, stuffy train for 6 hours, but passed beautiful scenery along the way. Our first day in Chengde was the coldest to date as we wandered around Bishu Shanzhuang which is a park in the centre and utterly spectactular. The small corner we explored was dotted with frozen lakes, that we walked across (trying to ignore the loud cracks that occasionally happened) to stunning pagodas with equally sublime views.
Today started with yet more dumplings in a grotty eaterie that filled our bellies ready to brace the cold and explore two of the northern temples. The first, Puning Temple, appeared to be a working one, with monks dotting the place and prayers taking place. Again the views and buildings were unbelievable...quite possibly the most beautiful landscapes Dave and I have seen. The second temple was called Putuozongcheng and appeared very run down and relatively unimpressive. We continued to the top of the hill, however, and wandered inside to witness the most stunning Chinese architecture we've seen yet. We climbed to the top of the temple and had awesome views over Chengde, Sledgehammer Rock and the surrounding temples and mountains...simply breathtaking.
We have one further night in Chengde before heading back to Beijing to complete more sitghseeing and to start our tour. Having written an essay (sorry!) I will sign off and will be in touch in the next week with more updates :)
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