Chilling in China World: a very modern family indeed...

Just when I had got used to wearing an apron while I eat hotpot, and having my coat and bag covered by a pseudo-dustcloth in restaurants, at dim sum this weekend I was provided with a mini plastic bag to protect my phone.  Seeing as I promptly then dropped a prawn dumpling in the vinegar, this was  greatly appreciated!

Harbin's incredible 11th Ice and Snow Festival, 2010

Dave and I took a weekend trip to Harbin Ice and Snow festival, 2 hours by plane NE of Beijing in Heilongjiang province, where the temperature has been known to drop to -40C in winter.  Luckily for us, when we arrived at midnight, it was a relatively balmy -23C, and we happily skidded on sheets of ice across town in pimped up taxi.

 

I have never been anywhere like Harbin, or anywhere that cold and wintry, so I found it particularly interesting.  In fact, I felt like an intrepid explorer in all my layers and with self-heating wonder packs tucked under my bra straps to keep me warm from the core!

 

The Songhua river completely freezes over, and essentially provides a massive new expanse of land on which to create a winter playground, including your usual, run-of-the-mill-for-us-Beijingers chair-skating and ice-biking opportunities (see previous post), ice slides, snowmobiles, buggies and a rally track on the ice! (Very Top Gear...)

 

The ice festival was simply the most mind-boggling thing I have ever seen in China, and definitely one of the best.  The photos above give some indication, more of mine can be found here and here, and some of photographer R. Todd King (who goes every other year to take pictures!) can be found on his website, and give a good idea of just how impressive the festival is.

 

There were ice Terracotta Warriors and an ice Forbidden City (both decidedly better than their stone counterparts!), as well as other famous buildings and recognisable objects, such as the World Cup trophy, the Colosseum, the Temple of Apollo and the Great Wall of China.  All made out of ice (natch!), and with some reaching over 50 metres high.

 

The festival is now in its 11th year, and I would be interested to know whose idea it was in the first place to mine all of this ice, and sculpt it over a period of weeks in temperatures that get as low as -40C.... Rather them than me!  Of course, all the Chinese love it when the sculptures are all lit up, but I am glad we went early to see them in the daylight and the sunshine, as in the evening, while impressive, the effect is a little tacky for my tastes!

 

We also visited the bizarrely-named "Sun Island", where the Snow Sculpture Art exhibition/competition is held.  Unfortunately, the weather was quite overcast on Sunday and so the light was not the best for viewing these sculptures - but even so, they were very impressive.

 

On the food and evening entertainment front, Dave and I were a little less successful...!  First, we were exhausted by the cold weather and the lack of food (for some reason, the pot noodles and cold plates of sausage and fake cheese didn't provide much sustenance...).  Then, we headed to a bar recommended online (NB: it looked a lot of fun, with photos of people dancing on the bar etc!) but on arrival, we found it to be completely empty and freezing cold.  Top that off with a beer that is half empty before it's been served to you, and you'll understand why we polished the beers off with a quick game of "lowest card drinks" before heading back to the hotel for some quality time with Jack Bauer.  In hindsight, we may have been better off aiming for a bar which warns of the frequent and violent Korean vs. Russian brawls!

Kodak - beautifying the billions

I have to apply for various visas for mine and Ben's upcoming trip, and needed to get some passport photos done - always a traumatic experience.  *sigh*

I duly headed for my local Kodak shop, where I was shown to a mirror and hairbrush, before being led to a seat in front of a big white screen.  The shop attendant used a DSLR with a soft flash to take 6 pictures, which I then got to analyse on a large TV screen.  So far, so good.  I eventually opted for the one in which I looked least suspicious (here, suspicious of the camera holder, not suspicious serial killer as per my UK photo) and in which she had coerced a faint (albeit confused) smile out of me.  Then, lo and behold, she arranged for me to collect them the next day - allowing her time to photoshop the results!*  Amazing.

And if any further proof were necessary, yesterday I got it.  I went to the Vietnamese embassy and handed over two photos, as per the requirements on its website.  Whereas the three people before me in the queue  had had one photo returned at this point, the man behind the counter instead requested to keep mine for 'personal use'.  Ahem, thanks and I'm flattered - but no!  Nice one, Kodak - can we have this in London please?

* NB: this is common practice, not just for me - thanks, people.

A Chinese fairground on ice: chair-skating, ice-biking and sheep-sleighs...

We took a trip to Houhai at the weekend, to see what the Beijingers get up to when the lakes are frozen solid - and what an icy wonderland awaited!  We set about hiring some skates, but instead were tempted by the other imaginative delights on offer - ice bikes, chairs with blades, carriages pulled by life size, mechanical dolls, ice dodgems and - - - a sleigh pulled by a sheep!  Yes, a giant, real-life sheep, wearing little hoof-protectors, giving rides around the ice in a small 'sleigh'.  It had to be seen to be believed, but take a look at the pictures below for an indication....

We had a lot of fun on our bikes, even though - unsurprisingly - the steering was a bit skew-whiff (and God forbid you got a wheel or blade stuck in an ice rut!) and the brakes a little ineffective.  Despite the vast range of things on offer, many people chose to brave the ice simply in their shoes, slipping all over the place but getting stuck in with the hoopla and sausages on a stick nonetheless.... a dangerous decision considering the speed everyone is careering around at!  

 

After an hour of racing around, we decided to try the chairs - definitely one of the safer ways to hit the ice, even taking into account the accompanying pair of 2-foot long spikes with handles for pushing yourself around at pace.  Of course, some bright spark had the idea of forming as long a chain as possible on the ice, led by a brave man on a bike - Cue: chaos!  Then, as if it's not enough entertainment for one afternoon, a crazy man stripped down to his speedos, sang for 10 minutes in the -6 degrees and dived right in (to the special area cordoned off for swimmers in winter, natch...).

Just another afternoon in China!  If only we had proper winters in the UK - and fewer safety regulations...

Spotted on the sidewalk...

.... workers doing press-ups in the street on a Sunday in -6C!

Update: Korean marmalade tea...

...is delicious!  This could also be because it's made from the Youzi (aka pomelo) - my favourite Chinese fruit (see previous post).

 

What a discovery!

Wangfujing Snack Street

Just off Wangfujing (the main "shopping street" in Beijing, although I don't know quite who shops there...) is a snack street (this is different to the Night Market), where you can buy a wide variety of chuan'r () - see below for the delicacies on offer! It's a bustling little street, and has a surprising number of people actually purchasing and eating the food - though it has to be said that the normal meat skewers seem to be the most popular, no matter what the stallholders tell you.

A little interesting aside is that the character for chuan is 串which looks just like a skewer....Here are some candied tomatoes and small apples - you often see them being peddled around on the back of a bike:This chap has a selection of candied everything!Some of the more normal skewers...And some of the more unusual! (Though I'll admit I have never, ever seen anyone eating a seahorse or live scorpion....)This lady is selling the homemade yogurt that comes in small clay pots and is available from small shops all over the city - the chap in the right is the star of one of the above photos, and was a very keen subject!

Zhujiazhuang

Back in October, I took a trip to Shanghai and went to a small water village about an hour away called Zhukiazhuang. It was very pretty, and kind of what I imagine a Chinese Venice would be like (though having never been to Venice, this may be misguided....), even with small gondolas to take you around. Delightful!
We arrived in the evening and the small shops and restaurants directly along the canals were all lit up and looking very pretty - it was certainly much more picturesque and pleasant than wandering the small alleyways which were stuffed full of small shops selling generic tourist tack.In the back streets, however, there was a lot of local food on display - and I was left wondering who on earth bought it, as literally every second shop had a massive counter of these pork (?) delights, either tied up with string or wrapped in leaves. I didn't buy off the street, but did get it served over dinner and it was tender, sweet, sticky and delicious.

Korean marmalade tea and other Chinese hamper delicacies

I was pleasantly surprised to arrive back in China and find an unusual Christmas hamper on my desk.   While some items (wine, biscuits, truffles, toy snowman) were what you might expect in England, others most certainly were not, including:

 

- a box of dried kumquats

- 500g raisins

- Korean marmalade-tea (admittedly, this is not the real name)

- and, most strange of all, 500g of flaxseeds.

 

I can't get the jar of Korean marmalade-tea open, but as soon as I do, I'll let you know what it's like!  For the time being, satisfy your curiosity here.

Beijing's Big Freeze

As I'm sure many of you will have heard, Beijing (and seemingly the rest of the world!) is experiencing a Big Freeze, with temperatures here dropping as low as -16.7C during the night (the lowest temperature since 1971!), and hovering around -13C in the daytime.  Strangely, it seems more bearable at night, and I wonder if this is because I simply *expect* it to be colder then!

 

The heaviest snowfall in Beijing in almost 60 years meant that hundreds of flights were cancelled (mainly domestic, but also international - so Dave and I were lucky to land (safely on a snowy runway...) on Monday morning!), and for the FIRST TIME, schools were shut for a snow day.  Extreme cases in the north included this train, literally stopped in its tracks by a wall of snow.

 

However, it's remarkable how better equipped China is when it comes to snow, in comparison with the UK.  And if you remember my previous post about snow, Beijing actually only sees, on average, 3 snowfalls per year - so it isn't that common an occurrence.  A few flakes of snow can see the whole of London ground to a halt, including the Underground (which, in particular, never ceases to amaze me, seeing as it is UNDERground....).  Here, more than 20,000 people were dispatched to shift the snow: from the road, to the gutter, the gutter to the pavement, the pavement back to the gutter (yes - jobs for the masses!) all day and all night, which meant that Monday morning saw a steady, if slow, stream of traffic around the city.  Sadly, this means no snow days over here and,for the most part, it's business as usual for the start of 2010...

 

As an aside, this post is made using the "email to blog" function, as I can't access the editing part of my blog at the moment - so please forgive any dubious formatting etc!

Photo shoot

Every so often around town, you will spot a photo shoot with a moody/nonchalent/freezing model. I love these!

In action:
Off camera and freezing cold!