Deb does China

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese New Year's started out pretty uneventful for me.  All of my Chinese friends had gone home to their home towns to celebrate with their families.  So besides from going to Ikea, which was a huge mistake...because all of Beijing seemed to be in the store!!! it was spent re-orginizing my room...with my new Ikea storage bins!!! 

 

This is a huge festival for the Chinese people...they light off firecrackers all week leading up to and then at 12:00 midnight on New Year's Eve they light off fireworks... At least this was my understanding of the tradition.  Well all I can say is that the weeks leading up to New Year's were filled with fire crackers and fireworks every day all day long...They light then to ward off evil spirits... So during my room organizing adventure I would have to stop and watch the fire works which where amazing...then at 10:00 p.m. our neighbor invited us over to his place for some New Year's cheer!!!!  This was only the 2nd time I had met Leo...but when he found out I was organizing my room he would not take no for an answer...and really was I even considering saying no!!!  organizing my room or partying??????? it really was a no-brainer...

 

Leo had some work friends over and his brother and parents and some kids...so it was a full house very busy and lots of bantering amongst us all.  I really enjoyed myself...celebrating.  At midnight we headed outside and watched the fireworks display and listened to the fire crackers....it was totally out of control!!!!! what a sight to see...no matter where you looked the sky was lit up...it was so loud all of the car alarms where going off...people where in the middle of the street lighting off the fireworks...everyone was having a great time....After all of Leo's fireworks were gone we headed back to his place for some more New Year's cheer...I finally headed across the hall at 3:00 a.m. Amazingly enough I still heard fireworks at 4:40 a.m. and the fire crackers started again at 8 in the morning....absolutley amazing....I am completly sure that there are no more evil spirits in the whole of China....What a night!!!

 

Happy Chinese New Year's everyone!!!  Sin nyen kwai ler ----- or Kung Hei Fat Choi....enjoy the photos 

On Friday after work we headed to the train staion to meet up with the Cycle China tour group. We had signed up for a weekend excursion to Harbin. We took the overnight train as Harbin is located in the north of China in the Province of Heilongjiang which boarders Russia. Harbin has the nickname as Little Moscow because of its Russian architecture located throughout the city.

We arrived in Harbin on Saturday morning at around 7 a.m., the temperature when we arrived was a balmy....-29 with a windchill of -----COLD!!! Thankfully I am from Canada....but even the cold air took my breath away when I first got off the train....man it was cold and it stayed cold.....BRRRRRR.

We headed for the hotel for some breakfast before we got started for the day. The day started with a trip to the Church of Saint Sophia, famous for it's Russin architectural influence. After a few photo opts and a tour inside of the Church we headed to our next stop of the trip, the frozen Songhua River. At the river there were many winter activities we could participate in. A few of the people in our tour group took a horse and buggy ride most of us just looked around and took picutres. I wanted to go on snowmobile but it was soooo cold and I was not dressed warm enough for it.....and well it was being driven by a tiger???? What's up with that? Our next stop was the Japanese Germ Warfare Experimental Base - Division 731. It was a museum set up to show the tourture the Chinese people endured at the hand of the Japanese during the second world war. Very sobering to learn about this part of history. Later in the afternoon we headed to the Ice Lantern Festival. We walked through the park taking pictures of the amazing ice buildings and sculpture. Then as we walked around the sun began to set and the ice sculptures and buildings began to be lit....What a beautiful sight...unfortunately the pictures don't do it justice....

The next day we enjoyed a stroll through the Snow Sculpture Festival at the Sun Island Park. The day was beautiful, although it was still FREEZING!!! the sun was shining and it was a nice crisp morning for a walk though the park..the snow sculptures were amazing....so much detail and some of them sooooo big!!!!! After the stroll through the park we headed to the Siberian Tiger Park for a safari. The park has over 300 free roaming tigers and cubs and other species such as a liger(lion and tiger hybird), white tigers and pumas. Unfortunately I did not manage to get a good picture of a liger or a white tiger but I did get many great shots of the tigers. They sure are a beautiful creature. After our safari we headed to the pedestrian shopping street, Zhongyang Avenue to do some shopping, and to enjoy the Russian architecture. Then back to the train station to board the train for our overnight trip home.

A great weekend away in the north of China despite the cold weather...Enjoy the pictures, I enjoyed taking them...well most of them!!!! a few of them are from another tour member, Jacob V from the Netherlands...thanks Jacob).

Happy New Year's.    WOW  2006!!!  I hope you all had a great new year's eve...I know it is a bit late in coming but our internet has been quite touchy since the new year....we think we finally have it figured out. 

 

I spent New Year's Eve this year at the Kai Bar, a local Tea House, and then at Tiananmen Square to watch the flag raising!  It was a great night!!!  Although I must admit that I am not as young as I used to be because pulling an all nighter...well to say the least took more out of me than I care to admit (mind you my oh so younger roomies did not fair much better either...one of them even went home earlier!!! and woke up later than me!!!!!)....New Year's day was spent around my apartment recouperating from a lack of sleep.

 

I feel I need to start planning for next year's New Years Eve event...last year Time Square-New York ....this year Tiananmen Square-Beijing....what to do, what to do????

 

I am not sure how I managed not getting any pictures of Tiananmen Square...but really I was there...all I can say is the crowd was huge...Till next time enjoy the pictures.