Harbin!

I survived Harbin! Woooooooooooot!

Actually it wasn't that bad but it was a trip where I was a little bit worried. This was because of the forecasted -25 - 35 degree temperatures that it gets to around this time of the year.

However, on the weekend when I went to Harbin, the temperature was above average and only reached -15 to -20 degrees so I didn't totally freeze my butt off! Having said that it was still incredibly cold and can safely say I've never experienced that type of weather.

Harbin itself was great. The city has alot of Russian architecture (being so close to Russia) and also it used to be a Russian city before China got back control of it. At night the city lights up and looks incredible. But the main attraction (and the reason to go at this time of the year) was the various ice festivals going on. We managed to look at three different parks which had ice festivals going on. The amount of work needed to create these sculptures is amazing. Some of them are so big and some of the smaller ones are so intricate. Too bad I haven't found a way to put my photos up on the net, otherwise I'd show you guys, but I definitely took stacks of photos (at the expense of my right hand) to relive the visual memories. Will put them up once back home in Oz.

So now I am into my 6th week at China. After this week I have 2 more weeks left learning Chinese then I'll be off to Shanghai. I think 8 weeks was just about right in terms of duration of stay in Beijing. At the end of 8 weeks I'll be ready to leave Beijing but also will have learnt enough to satisfy me. The Chinese is definitely improving and I can see the progress every week.

Looking forward to going back to Oz and talking in Chinese to everyone (admittedly Chinese with bad pronounciation and no tones).

Interesting statistic :

Number of jiaozi's (dumplings) eaten from Saturday to Monday - 50 (damn I love jiaozi).

Zai Jian!

Kris