I left the over 40 degree heat of southeastern Australian February at about 1am on 30th January to arrive the next night in northern China in -15 degrees. And I thought Tassie was a bit chilly.
I had decided while in Australia that I would change my ticket and fly back to the UK via China and visit Chris (with whom I had travelled through Uganda and Rwanda) for a week and see the Snow and Ice festival in Harbin.
It was lovely to see Chris again and the Snow and Ice festival was amazing. The snow sculptures were stunningly carved and with amazing detail. The Chinese people I found to be very friendly and helpful even if they didn't speak much English and I can't speak any Chinese. Chris and I did have some entertaining meals out where we either couldn't understand the menu since it was all in Chinese so we just picked at random (luckily Chris knew a few words) or the translations into English were comical such as the food being "trash". It was certainly interesting and tasted great but I do not want to consider what I may have eaten.
The ice festival was at night and we had the considerable misfortune of losing our guide and therefore our tickets and were stopped at the gate and made to wait in a room for a considerable time not knowing whether we were going to actually get to see the ice sculptures since they were very strict about the tickets, even though we bade them ring the hotel where we had booked the tickets. Not knowing Chinese we didn't know what was going on until, after a considerable wait, ourur guide got brought in to us with our tickets! We could only figure that the man who had gone out a long time before had gone around the whole festival and asked each guide if they had lost two white people. And there were many many guides so we were impressed with their effort. In Australia I think they would have just let us in.
We had three days in Harbin then flew back to Beijing so Chris could go to work. I visited the Forbidden city and the Great wall while there.
The forbidden city is quite huge and also so peaceful given that it is in the centre of Beijing and is full of tourists. It is so easy to get lost since so much of it looks so much like other parts of it and I would find myself suddenly in a peaceful garden with knotted trees and noone around and didn't know how I'd come to be there and was utterly surprise since nothing had led me to believe that was what I'd find around that corner. It is beautiful and made me feel like I was in the Labyrinth.
But even more beautiful was the Great Wall. After finally finding where the bus departed I went out to the Great Wall and spent the day there. "Great" is definitely the word for it.
I walked all the way up the top of the hill past the crowds and got a fabulous view of the wall as it meandered over the mountains. Listening to Ave Maria through earphones, I was in my own blissful world, oblivious to the crowds of tourists. The sky was clear and the day was warm. And I was trekking along the Great Wall. Talk about happy. I went back the way I came and then went up in the other direction from the entrance for there was nobody along the wall there at all. I only followed the crowds initially to see if there was something special that way that I should check out. Seems there wasn't and it is just the human way to follow everyone else, which is what I did too so I can't fault that! It was lovely though and I loved the Chinese people having had several girls want there photos taken with me as if I was interesting in some way or maybe famous. I got back that night quite exhausted knowing I had to leave the next morning the fly back to England and work a few days later.
