Christmas and the Journey home (23 December - 28 December)

The last two days at the academy weren't very eventful, there were 2 new students from Malaysia which are intending to stay for 3 years. I spent most of my time packing up my room and deciding who to give my clothing and things to. On Friday afternoon I had to make a short speech in front of all the kids and I also got my certificate, the certificate is really just a piece of laminated paper which seems quite paltry because it doesn't quite seem to acknowledge all the hardships I went through in the past year, but I'm still glad to have it and besides its all about the experience and not the certificate.

Before coming here I had set so many goals, I have achieved all of them and more however I don't think I have used the originally intended pathway for any. This too has been a lesson, focus less on the method and more on the goal and you will always get there eventually.

 

Me together with the shifus

 

 Together with Li the translator

 

My Shifu and I

 

Last time in front of the gate

Saturday morning I left the academy and headed in to Siping, I got a hotel so that I could store all my luggage which was pretty heavy and definitely going to need some special re-packing to make the airlines happy. After getting an 8 kuai ($1USD) haircut at a very dodgy hairdresser I headed off to the Jin Li Hao for a bath, sauna and scrub. I felt really good after this and headed straight to the buffet to meet all other students including my shifu for a x-mas dinner. The buffet was really full despite the fact that the Chinese don't really celebrate christmas but I guess like everybody else, any reason to party is a good one.

my 8 kuai haircut 

Group Photo at the Buffet

My Shifu and I at the Buffet (left), First portion of food (right)

Umit and the Baijiu (left), Getting ready to drink the white poison (right)

 

Shifu showing us his knife and fork skills

The aftermath, the table behind us

Serving Turkey

 

Baijiu Group Photo

 

Shifu and I at the trainstation

After 30 minutes of waiting we finally got our table, most other tables looked like a bomb had been dropped on it, with food remains, napkins, and plates scattered all over the place. But we too went crazy, each grabbing about 3 plates of food before settling down. I had brought a small bottle of Russian vodka that I had purchased in Heihe. I hadn't had alcohol in a year and had decided that this would be a good occasion to have a drink again. The vodka was finished pretty quickly and soon came the Baijiu shots (huge shot glasses), it was my first time drinking it and I felt very tipsy after just a few sips. After almost 2 cup/chinese sized shots I had enough and after about 3 hours we all went home. I still went to the trainstation to buy a train ticket to get to Changchun the following day.

Sunday I got up late and headed to the translation, I arrived in Changchun in the afternoon and it was extremely windy and cold, it was extremely difficult hauling all the luggage around. What made it worse was that I hadn't planned where I was going to stay and because I was annoyed by the cold I just took a cab to the airport hotel. I was glad to have a place to stay and also didn't need to worry about getting to the airport. The following day I got to the airport at about 14:30. My suitcase was 7kg overweight and I had to pay 168RMB which I think was very reasonable. My China Southern Airlines flight left shortly later. The flight on the Airbus A319 was smooth and I was impressed with the service. The flight also brought back the memory from my first flight to Changchun, I told myself that when I leave I at least want to be able to order my drinks and food in Chinese, I'm glad to say that I was able to do this.

 The flight arrived at around 19:00 in Shanghai and I still had to collect a charger that a friend had purchased for me and purchase a few things for my brother from a Taobao shop (Taobao is Chinese bay). I was doubtful if that was going to be possible but luckily I had a Chinese friend to assist me. I ended up on the Maglev at about 20:00 and its a great feeling passing cars on the highway doing 300km/h (speed restricted after 19:30/usually 430km/h). The journey took about 7 minutes and because the taxi cue was very long I ended up looking for a taxi not in the designated area. I could tell by the meter that I was going to be paying for than I should but I was tired, had to get a lot of things done and didn't want to make a scene. After checking in I went straight out and got on the Metro to fetch the charger. It was already 21:00 and I had spoken to the guy from the taobao shop, he had tried to give me directions but it was too difficult to follow because of his dialect.  Luckily I had a friend to help and after a 30 minute journey by taxi and metro we got to a 21 story apartment building. We ended up in  a small apartment on the fifth floor which had 3 guys in it together with tons of Apple merchandise, all grey market products, basically real apple stuff but at a fraction of the price because it is not sold through the Apple retail stream. After buying the things I wanted I headed back to the hotel. It was already 12am so I went straight to bed.

 

The Taobao guys

Some of their products and things waiting to be packaged and sent out

This morning I got up at 6am, had a shower and got a taxi to the Maglev station.

 

Time was wrong (actually 5:49am) but check the nuclear button

Qi Gong and Mediation outside the Mc Donalds (right), Maglev Longyang station (right)

Sunrise at 300km/h (left), Arrival at Pudong Airport (right)

By 7:30am I had checked in with no problems and by 10:20am we were in the air. I always find flying back into time rather strange, after spending 12 hours flying you arrive on the same day only a few hours after you have left. My flight from Shanghai to Zurich arrived at 15:30pm and now I am waiting for my flight from Zurich to Johannesburg which is at 22:30pm tonight, I happy to be going home but I don't really know what to expect. I can say sitting here in Zurich is a bit of a reverse culture shock, im sure it will be worse when I get to South Africa and people I know will be expecting the same me from a year ago but I'm sure I have changed at least a little.

Leave at 10:00am fly 12 hours and arrive 15:30pm the same day

Landing in Zurich (left), Christmas decorations outside Zurich airport (right)

But I'm sure the reintroduction will be a bit strange and difficult accepting the absence of certain things at first. But as a wise person once said such is the impermanent nature of life.

I thought the video below is quite suitable.





This may be the last post however I am enjoying the idea of a blog and perhaps I will start a new one focusing on travel and photography (yes im going to start using a DSLR to make sure I capture better photos than my current somewhat limited point and shoot). Thanks for following this blog and if you plan on going to China or the same academy you can always contact me or leave a comment or ask me questions.

Trip to Heihe 黑河 and Harbin 哈尔滨 (18 December - 23 December)

The route ...

(this blog post was a bit rushed) Before the trip began I went to the post office in Siping to send some things home, by ship, so they will probably only arrived next year sometime. The guy at the post office always does a really good job at packing the boxes and isn't really concerned about how much tape he uses.

The post office even had a christmas tree and and a father christmas, a very rare sight in China. I must say I'm not a big fan of all the christmas decorations back home, so almost absence of it here in China is much appreciated.

After the post office Andreas, Erin, Rita and I went to go get a message. The message place has been renovated to a more feng shui setting but the masseuses were pretty crappy and wouldn't stop talking, they were really exited to have 4 out of the 10 Siping foreigners in a single room. After the mediocre message we went to Love noodles for lunch, the food was pretty good as usual.

 

Another christmas tree, one of the few in Siping

Just some background on why I had decided to go to Harbin. Harbin has two ice festivals every year, the Ice Lantern Festival and Ice & Snow world (Bingxue 冰雪). Basically some really amazing ice sculptures and because I wasn't going to be training much during my last week at the academy I thought it would be a good idea to check it out. Whilst looking at the map I saw Heihe (黑河 black river) which is the most northern developed city in China bordering Russia. After reading one or two reviews online I had decided I may as well check it out and buy some Russian souvenirs.

After lunch I bought my train ticket to Harbin for the following day, it would be a 3:40hr journey and I had no assigned seat. I wasn't sure about going to Heihe so I didn't buy a ticket and decided to do that when I arrive in Harbin.

On Sunday I stopped off to buy some snacks before heading to the trainstation. I found some interesting snacks, vacum packed pig snouts for extra freshness. Or a dried rat together with some deer antlers in a packet for tea perfect high tea.

My train T183 arrived on time and I was lucky to get a seat and to my surprise the train was heated which was even more exciting. I arrived in Harbin at about 19:00 and it was freezing, about -28ºC. I had also decided to buy a ticket to Heihe which I managed to get without and problems, it would be another 10 hour journey and I would arrive the following morning at 7:00am so I opted for a hard sleeper.

Siping trainstation platform 2 (right), Harbin trainstation waiting room

My train, the K7033 left at 21:05 on time the ride was very pleasant and I managed to sleep almost the entire time and didn't feel cold at any stage of the journey. But judging by the ice build op on the inside of the double glazed windows I could tell it was really cold outside.

 

Sign behind the toilet/hole in floor in the train (don't pee on the heater)

When I got off the train at about 8:30am (there was a delay) it was -35ºC and every step was painful, my joints felt like they were grinding with every step I took. I went to the ticket office to check if I could get a ticket to Harbin for the following day, they had no tickets so I ended up getting a ticket back to Harbin the same night at 19:00. This meant I would have less than 12 hours to have a look at the town and buy some Russian souvenirs.

Arrival in Heihe

 

No pinyin signs, just Russian Cyrillic

After getting a cab to the city center I changed my mind about getting a hotel and walked around a bit, for about 10 minutes after which I felt the cold deep in my bones so I got a cab to the Daheihedao International Trade Island (大黑核岛). This is and island between Russia and China where Russians sell goods (Vodka, Chocolate etc.) to the Chinese  and the Chinese sell things (everything you can imagine) to Russians.

Heihe city center

Chinese trade center (left), Russian trade center (right)

Some of the few russian products yes canned grizzly bear meat (left)

I spent a few hours looking at all the stuff, the Russians sold mainly food products, binoculars, matroyshka/babushka dolls, knives, nutcrackers and crystals. The Chinese trade center was basically like the Beijing pearl market but with appliances, tools, vehicle parts etc.

At 13:00 I had lunch at a Russian restaurant which was a good experience but the food wasn't that great although I did enjoy the salad, it was the first time in a year that I had eaten raw tomatoes. After lunch it was about 14:00 and didn't know what to do so I walked around outside a bit and realised I had to go somewhere for a few hours. This is when I spotted a large building with black and gold lettering, I was hoping it would be what I thought it was, a bathhouse and it was. It was really amazing the bath was lit up with blue light and had jacuzzi springs, there was also a sauna with an ice pool. After my relaxing bath I went to the fourth floor to the recliner room and watched some TV. The staff at the bathhouse were very excited to see a non-russian foreigner and were quite amazed to see one speaking chinese, I was even asked "so you are chinese ?". At 18:30 I left the bathhouse and the whole experience only cost 18RM. I didn't get any photos but below is a picture of the business card, a must see place if you ever find yourself in Heihe during the winter.

bathhouse business card

Heihe train station (right)

 

In total I was satisfied with my experience in Heihe, it may have taken me 20 hours of traveling time for a visit less than 12 hours long but it was worth it. It was also a very new and unique China experience, almost all Chinese people spoke Russian to me and were all extremely friendly especially when they found out I wasn't Russian.

At 19:00 my train K7034 departed for Harbin, on-board I was surrounded by 3 police officers. They couldn't understand why I went to Heihe and they also made fun of my running shoes, I agree they aren't best suited for arctic conditions. The train arrived in Harbin at 6:00am the following morning and after walking a great deal away from the train station I was able to get a Taxi that would run on the meter and not some inflated laowei price. I got to my hotel of choice but was told I would need to wait 2 hours for a room. But because it was so cold I couldn't really walk around and look around for another hotel. Thanks to google maps I found another hotel on the same road and managed to get a room there right away. My brother had asked me to do some shopping for photography equipment so after finding a place on google maps I decided to head out and get a taxi. I walked around for about 1:30hrs trying to get a taxi and eventually got one (the problem is that people share taxis and go to places together and taxis don't want to take a single person). 

One thing I noticed during all the walking is the presence of large ice blocks along every road waiting to be carved and chopped up into art pieces.

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Russian church next to my hotel (left), frozen bridge (right)

 

10 lanes and lots of smog

I didn't know what the place was called but when I explained to the cab drivers I'm looking for a big place to buy computer and photography stuff he knew what I was talking about (corner of Shisi and Nanton street), it was huge and just a smaller version of the electronics city in Beijing.

 

Another interesting sign (left), large computer place (right)

The shopping part was pretty effortless but I ended up spending a few hours looking at all kinds of new stuff. By the time I was done it was already dark outside and decided to go eat something, I couldn't get a cab so I walked a bit and found a place called Indian Hot. All I can say the food is not for the fainthearted but literally because everything except the meat sticks was deep fried or drenched in oil. They also brought me pieces of lamb liver on sticks and deep fried bread, I tried both but wasn't too impressed with the bread however the liver was surprisingly tasty (probably all the MSG) which was a surprise because I usually hate liver. The noodles I ordered came in a pot of oil with a deep fried egg floating in it, luckily I was hungry so it all went down pretty easily.

After dinner I decided to go to the Ice Lantern festival and because I couldn't get a Taxi I decided to be brave and take a bus, however the characters were overwhelming but I asked someone and ended up taking bus 53 right to the park.

where do you want to go ?

Most of the sculptures were still under construction but a police officer informed me that the park would open the following evening.

I headed back to the hotel and got an early nights sleep, in the morning I checked trains and decided it would be best to take a train back Thursday morning and get another hotel closer to the train station. I found a hotel by using Ctrip.com and it was really close. When I got to the train station I was anxious because the display sign indicated only 3 seats available on the train I wanted and I was at the back of one of the many ques. Luckily it all worked out fine and I got the train I wanted.

 

Trainstation

Outside the train station there were many ice sculptors busy sculpting

Ice scupltings outside the train station

After the trainstation I walked around a bit having a look at some of the markets and shops, however there wasn't much so I headed back to the electronics place to collect some things I had ordered.

full bus

 

I was done at about 15:30 and took a bus to the park, I got there at about 16:30 and was told it would open at 19:00. So I walked around and then sat in a KFC for about an hour and then returned.

The sculptures were amazing and I was a bit dissapointed that I didn't have a better camera with me to capture some excellent shots but it was an excellent experience and it was only when I got into the cab afterwards that I realised I had spent 2 hours out in the blistering cold during heavy snow looking at ice sculptures. Enjoy the pictures below.

 

Those doors are the same size as a normal house door

After I got back to the hotel I had a bath and then decided to head out again to the Bingxue which is the main ice event event hough I was told it wouldn't be open, after a long cab ride we got there. The structures were still under construction and they were enormous, they were using construction cranes to life the ice, almost like building skyscrapers. It was a pity that they weren't finished but I was still extremely satisfied with what I had seen. I headed back to the hotel and got an early nights sleep.

 The main Bingxue event under construction

In the morning I got the the train station on time and left on time, the train ride was very smooth and I had a soft seat which was very comfortable. I arrived in Siping about 2:30hours later and headed straight back to the academy for my last two days and then Saturday I'm off so Siping to start my journey back home.

 Arriving at Siping Railway Station（四平火车站）