All quiet on the Western front

So, there has been radio silence since we landed back in the UK, and that's because it's been incredibly hectic. After nature intervened with a volcano, and delayed our homecoming by 6 days, we were thrown in at the deep end with no time to readjust - straight back to work, unpacked backpacks and boxes all over the house, mountains of laundry and other miscellaneous household chores just waiting to be tackled. Throw the wedding into the mix, and you have complete, non-stop chaos... And so the blog has taken a backseat to real life for a while.

At the risk of boring you all with the minutiae of my Bridezilla antics (my new motto being: 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'), I will restrict this first post at least to non-wedmin anecdotes - though as I seem to spend most of my time with a bridal magazine on the table in front of me, a pair of scissors in one hand and a pritt stick in the other compiling a scrap book, I can't promise that you will be so lucky next time... and apologies for that in advance.

So - of all the places to be stuck, Ben and I had to end up in QATAR. A dry state, when all you really want is a cold beer or chilled glass of wine. *sigh* On the plus side, we were staying in a nice hotel, for free, with an all you can eat buffet 7-10, 11-3 and 5-9 - so we had comparatively little to complain about when many people were sleeping on airport chairs or floors (as here in Milan airport)... or stuck in the Maldives in a 5* resort with a family of four.*

After three days in Doha, we were pulling our hair out with boredom (not just because there was no alcohol, but admittedly this was a major factor...) and we hopped on an unscheduled flight to Rome, that had letters instead of a flight number and did not show up on any departures or arrivals boards or websites in Doha or Rome. Mysterious! At least it wasn't cancelled like all of these flights...

I can assure you the flight did exist, as we arrived gleeful and safe in Rome on Sunday 18 April - the day before we were both set to start work after our respective 'career breaks'. Less than ideal - but what could be done?

I begged and begged Ben to stay in Rome for one night so I could sample the delights if Italian paaaaasta, but he adopted an unusually strict stance and we found ourselves on a (free) bus to Geneva, put on by Qatar airways for those originally destined for Geneva, Zurich or Milan. Luckily they were not checking boarding passes, and we hope there weren't two unfortunate passengers stranded as we took their places....

Seventeen hours later, with two hours waiting at Milan airport in the middle of the night, we arrived in Geneva, six hours later than anticipated, and too late for any sleep in our pre-booked hotel room. *sigh* Luckily, we were there just in time to pick up the second of our booked hire cars (the first having been cancelled while we were on the bus, due to an impromptu ban on international hire), and thanks to dad for spending hours on the phone collating info about how best to get back to the UK, and availability of trains, buses and hire cars.

During the bus ride, we also managed to pick up a couple of hitchhikers on their way to Paris, and we set off on a beautiful drive through the French country side, arriving in Paris around 5pm.... and at Gare du Nord at around 7pm - exhausted and in desperate need of a nap after a gruelling 45 hours on the move. Luckily, Ben's mum had stepped in and saved the day by booking us into a lovely hotel just off the Champs Elysee.

We went to a delicious and quirky bistro with Florian, but had to turn down his suggestion of a 25 minute hike up Montmartre as we were simply too exhausted. The next morning we breakfasted with Ben's parents at the George V hotel, before heading off towards Dieppe. 'Oh what a lot of time we have!' we thought, happily. But lo and behold, the roads were narrow and winding, and our cheese and wine stop in the Carrefour took a little longer than anticipated, so before we knew it, it was an hour before the deadline for check in at the ferry and we still had the hire car to drop off in the centre of town...

Ben dropped me off at the port with the luggage, and I completed some sneaky manoeuvres to manage to check us both in without Ben actually being there, which was a relief. While I waited for Ben to get back to the port, I was thoroughly entertained by everyone else's stories about their journeys across Europe. One man had run out of Parkinson's medication, and was desperate to get back. I overheard another guy on the phone to the car hire company: "So..... The rental agreement says I need to drop the car off in Avignon. Hmm. Yes. Hmm. Well, you'll find it in the Dieppe ferry port, with the keys in the ignition. Byeeee!"

Luckily, Ben made it back in time, we boarded the ferry and enjoyed some beers with our wine and cheese on the way. Ben's dad picked us up from the ferry port and drove us back to London. After not having seen us for so long, he was probably a little disappointed that our chat lasted about 7 minutes before we both conked out for the journey, and arreived home on Wednesday - six days later than planned. Ouchie! Here's hoping the insurance will pay out on that delay....

* Honestly, the things some people complained about.

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!

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!

Sunshine City

We English love to talk about the weather, and so in the spirit of this, I'll take a moment to say that although it's absolutely freezing over her (c. -10 at the moment), it's bright and sunny and this lifts my spirits every day! (Well, every day that there is no government cloud-seeding or pollution fog....)

In fact "official" figures state that 86% of Beijing days are "blue sky days" and who am I to argue with that?