Harbin's Ice City

Karen and I decided to spend the past few days(including Christmas Day!) in the winter wonderland known as Harbin, China. Harbin is located next to next to Siberia in the extreme northeastern part of China. Its famous in China as being home to an ice city. Since the temperatures in Harbin average 3-4 F during the winter months, ice sculptors from all over the world have made Harbin one of the few places in the world where their art form is viable for long stretches of time. Starting in December, the ice city opens up in the outskirts of Harbin. Building replicas of famous Chinese landmarks, such as the Great Wall, the ice city is beautifully and spectacularly lit by LED's placed inside the ice blocks that create the structures. Walking around the ice city is a surreal experience...truly breathtaking.

Beijing

Winter break started on December 18th and Karen and I decided to head north to the Chinese capital of Beijing. I had been to Beijing before, but this would be Karen 1st time. While in Beijing, we planned on heading to the Great Wall of China, as well to the Forbidden City. Along the way we were open to new adventures, such as eating the Chinese speciality Peking duck, or walking down the food streets along the famous Wangfujing Street, where anything and everything under the sun is available to eat.

Chinese baby with oversized jacket!

Eating Scorpion on Wangfujing Street!

The Grocery Store

This entry is pretty self explanatory...except for the pajamas...I still don't get it...

The Commute

This blog entry proves once and for all that I will go to great lengths to provide you with the most compelling and interesting content from my life in China. Enjoy!

(I had to split it up because it was such a large file...)

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

The Post Office

This past week I had to go to the post office in my neighborhood to send a package home. I have been to the post office quite a few times since I've been in China, but decided to document this visit. The package I was sending was actually for one of my colleagues who can't speak Chinese, and who hadn't been to the post office before. She was sending scarves and some food back home. Its interesting, and you can see from the video, everything was OK to send home except this small package of shrunk wrapped chicken feet(a Chinese specialty...). They removed the chicken feet and allowed me to send other food items, such as a chocolate bar. Its also interesting to watch the Chinese write...you can see a man putting an address on a box, and I marvel at how quickly they move through the strokes of their written language. I still can't read or write Chinese, and with over 10000 separate characters(kind of like our letters)I don't know how anyone ever does. It has been shown that it takes Chinese schoolchildren almost an extra year to two years to reach the same level of written fluency as western culture...and this is mainly attributable to the difficulty of the written language.

Huangshan

Huangshan, or Yellow Mountain, is one of the most photographed places in the world. When you think of a classic China shot, with a mysterious mist of fog rising up the sides of a mountain, you are thinking of Huangshan. Karen and I had a chance to visit this iconic tourist site, and we were welcomed with almost picture perfect weather. We arrived Friday night, and stayed in a hostel at the base of the mountain. Our room had a small heater, but it wasn't nearly enough, as Karen and I shivered our way through the night, as winter had descended on this part of south central China, and flaunted its power during the weekend by keeping the temperatures in the 20's. On Saturday morning, we arose around 7 am, and walked around the streets of Huangshan(also the name of the town at the base of the mountain.) Once we found a place that sold our Chinese favorite, a breakfast "burrito" that the locals all love, we headed to the base of the mountain. We were spending the night in a hotel at the top of the mountain, and they were doing renovations to the hotel. The only way to get stuff from the bottom of the mountain to the top is to carry it. Who gets that job? Chinese migrant workers...earning less than 2000 US dollars a year, they start their day at 6 am and carry something up the mountain, which entails a strenuous 3 hour hike up the side of the mountain. They then carry something back down to the bottom of the mountain, get to eat lunch, and begin the same process again. Twice a day. 6 days a week. We can't really complain, can we?
Karen and I also got to see the most famous sunrise in China, coming over the peak of Huangshan, early on Sunday morning. We were surrounded by hundreds of Chinese tourist, who had come to Huangshan to see the same things we have, and I am sure, with the same sense of awe.