A Chinese Christmas

At first it just feels refreshing, even a tad mundanely chilly, but then suddenly there's a thousand tiny teeth gnawing at your face, hands and anywhere that's not 3 layers deep in clothes. You breath in and the air catches in your throat. You sniff and feel the ice crystals forming inside your nose. There's ice from your breath on your hair, your face and on your scarf. Ice is sticking your eyelashes together. You're not just cold-that implies a passivity- ice is actually clawing at your skin, trying to find a way in.

That's what -30C feels like.

This weekend my Bright Idea of spending Christmas in Harbin was realised. Harbin, 哈尔滨, is a city in 黑龙江, Heilongjiang (Black Dragon River) province which is in the far north-east of China, not too far from Vladivostok. And indeed there is a strong Russian influence in the city-after all they pretty much built it when they used it as a base for the construction of the railway. There is also a strong Korean influence, more of which later.

It gets very cold in winter.

On Christmas Eve Becka, Boram, Sara and I got up before dawn to catch our flight. We'd all swathed ourselves in as many layers as possible in preparation for arriving in Harbin so beforehand both in the taxi and in the airport we felt a tad overheated. After a swift two hour flight we began to descend into Harbin. All I could see out of the window was white. White white white. Occasionly there were several neat rows of houses. By this point I was rather excited. In fact, much to Becka's embarrassment, I was actually bouncing around in my seat squeeing at the snow.

Eventually we landed in a rather icy airport. We excitedly exited the airport. I'll admit at first I didn't think it felt all that cold. I even felt a tad disappointed. But then Boram started yelling and told me to scrunch my nose and that's when I realised that it was so cold that ice crystals had actually formed up my nose. It was a rather strange feeling to say the least!

We leapt in a taxi and headed off into town. The highway was three lanes wide but one was not really cleared of snow and another was for overtaking only. The taxi driver spent most of the ride telling us how bad our hotel was and how bad the location was. But I didn't mind as I could understand his lovely pure, clear Harbin accent. In Harbin they naturally speak the dialect closest to 普通话, Standard Mandarin, that I learn. Not like the Qingdao drawl! Eventually we arrived at the hostel, after I had to direct the driver as though I knew where I was going and he, the Harbinger, was the tourist. That was where the map app on my ipod came in handy- love that little pod:)

The hostel was rather characterful. There was mould and damp on the walls, the loos were manky and the internet unusable but it didn't matter as the place was so warm, and the staff so friendly and the beds (well mine anyway) soft with the thickest quilts I've ever seen. It did feel rather like a cocoon, hiding from outside. In our dorm there appeared to be a permenant resident in the shape of a Chinese girl. I don't know what she was doing there. I never saw her out of her pyjamas and she seemed to spend the whole time moaning to her boyfriend on the phone. There was also a Finnish woman in another room. I mention her because she did not speak a word of Chinese so Becka and I translated for her. I felt a warm glow of pride at being so clever as to effortlessly translate although admittedly it was rather easy Chinese. But still, I felt like a proper Chinese speaker! I rather admired the Finn as although she seemed around 60 she was travelling on her own to such far-flung places.

And then we ventured out. We caught a bus into town (our hostel location was not great but I'd rather pay 10p for a bus than an extra 10quid a night to be closer. Plus it was nice to see a non touristy area). It was so cold ice had formed on the bus windows. Inside the bus, on the bus windows. Quite thick ice too!

Eventually we arrived at the centre and proceeded to 中央大街, Main Street. This street was fairly Russian in appearance with European style buildings and cobbled streets. Very nice. The only problem was that we had not yet got used to the cold so we spent most of our time hiding in the countless souvenir shops. It was very cold. We hid in a Japanese restaurant for lunch, I got served the world's smallest bowl of stew, and then we carried on hiding in more shops until we chanced upon a Haagen-Dasz cafe and then we hid in that.

It was cold out there.

Haagen-Dasz cafes, to me, symbolise China. They are hideously expensive, which is why rich kids of the kind only China's unequal society can produce, habituate them. Noone in the UK is rich enough which is why I have never seen one in the West. But they are rather nice places, if you like the finer things in life...

Eventually we plucked up the courage and slipped and slid to 索非亚广场, Suofeiya Square. Throughout this trip we spent many happy hours playing Guess the Transliteration as the Chinese cannot transliterate Western names very accurately. 索非亚 is Sophia and her square is inhabited by a small, yet rather grand, church in the Orthodox style. Nowadays it is a museum rather than a place of worship although when we first got there there were carols playing outside. It felt rather Christmassy standing outside a church in the snow listening to Silent Night. There are a lot of churches in Harbin although I don't think many are still in their original use.

And then I fell over. And landed on my butt. And landed on my phone in my back pocket. My phone survived but I have a rather large bruise...

We scuttled back to the bus stop but the buses were insanely packed full. And by now we are used to sardine tin like buses but we baulked at clinging on to a doorway so retired to a 烧烤, shaokao, restaurant. Shaokao restaurants basically serve stuff on a stick. I adore them. There is nothing tastier than lamb roasted on a stick with rosemary. Except maybe the roasted bread- basically toast but covered with sugar in a Chinese twist. I even love the melt-in-your mouth fat on the lamb sticks.

I forgot to specify not spicy so my lamb arrived covered in annoying red. But I wolfed them down anyway and ignored the FIRE FIRE, FIRE IN THE HOLD signals coming from my mouth. Before coming to China you would never have found me eating spicy lamb fat. How things change.

And then back to Little Fir Youth Hostel. Which is right next to a dog meat resturant but we didn't realise until we left. We also didn't realise that there was a bus stop called 哈理科工大学, Ha Like Gong Daxue, and another, two stops later, called 哈医科大学, Ha Yike Daxue. We wanted the latter one but mistakenly got off at the first and thus had to to walk half a kilometer in -30, mostly on the main road. But it was fine. Allllll fine.

The next day was Christmas day. Although I kept forgetting that. I woke up around 7 and really-not-very-subtlely- clambered and creaked off from my eerie on the top bunk, rustled and crustled presents from my bag and bumped and crashed over to put them by the Koreans' beds. Becka and I had thought it would be rather cute if Santa visited them as he wouldn't have visited them before. We'd bought them some tangerines and some Chinese Opera figurines. Then I racketed back up to my roost and fell back into a slumber, Christmas Spirit done for the day. I think the Chinese randomer thought I was insane, randomly putting presents around the room at the crack of dawn.

A few hours later, as they stirred, I proudly informed them that Santa had been and there were indeed chuckles of delight :) Becka gave me a DVD of the King and I as she knows I have a soft spot for Chow Yun Fat, as well as an adaptor for Chinese plugs so I don't keep stealing hers. I gave her a kaleidoscope as well as money towards her flights to Harbin. Feeling rather Christmassy Becka bounced out of bed and cheerily wished the receptionist Merry Christmas!!!

"Oh." said the receptionist in the kind of tone that implies while she acknowledges you are excited, she really couldn't give a shit. The Chinese don't do Christmas... except for advertising purposes.

And then on into town. The aim had been to make it as far as St Sophia's Church but we were chased into a rather expensive restaurant by the cold. It cost 2kuai for a pancake. Gits.

Then we scuttled to the Church through a shortcut I boldly led us down. It seemed to be the fishmongers' street which probably explained the lack of people. It stank. After a brief, very brief, interlude taking pictures and watching the clouds of pigeons being fed by people stupid enough to pay 10kuai for a bag of peanuts off random women. If you went near the birds these women would rather aggressively hurry over and shout at you until you bought some peanuts or backed off.

Inside the church was a museum dedicated to the pre Civil War era in Harbin, There were hundreds of old photos of the birth of Harbin from a rather Wild West-like, er, mud patch, to a neat little town with Russian women sat by the river. There was also a random choir of women dressed in purple singing Chinese songs. After they had finished they milled about near a section of photos that I happened to be looking at. Thus arose the bizarre situation where the Chinese tourists took photos of themselves with the choir, then with me, the funny Laowai. In fact I got more requests for photos then they did...

The church itself is fading somewhat. The paint is peeling, and you can see the brickwork in places. It seemed rather forlorn without an altar and pews. I'm all for secularism but it was rather sad to see the place without its heart- like a playground without any children.

Then we scuttled off to see 兆林公园, Zhaolin Park. Harbin's main attraction in the winter is its ice and snow sculptures and Zhaolin Park is one of the main centres. There are random castles, statues and animals dotted around the city but the main events are in certain, fee paying, areas. The Ice Festival does not really start until January 5th but most of it had already been completed when we were there and it was fascinating to see the sculptors at work in such freezing conditions. One I talked to said he wasn't cold at all and I suppose if you are working and have proper clothing you won't be cold.

We liked Zhaolin but didn't want to go in as we were saving the money to go to the biggest park on 太阳岛, Sun Island, in the middle of the 松花江, Pineblossom River, so we headed off to a Russian style cafe to while away the time until dinner. The cafe was rather nice and the waiters were adorable. Becka and I wanted to take them home. There was one whom we kept picking on to ask questions such as "what temperature is it today" and "do you know where a spot important in Korean history is" (more of that later). The poor lad never had any idea and had to go and ask.

Why, wherever I am, I can always hear the American? And why do they only talk about how easy Chinese girls are to pull?

We walked to the end of 中央大街. There is a monument as well as some more ice castles. At this point disaster struck as Sara suddenly realised she was camera-less... Sara and Boram headed back to see if they could find it (fat chance) and Becka and I went for a stroll on the frozen river instead. People were dragging themselves around on sledges while others, bizarrely, were throwing fireworks around. Becka and I were fairly far from the bank. We could hear lots of cracking sounds. We were sure it was just the crackles from the fireworks. So sure in fact, that we headed straight for the bank and stayed there. Just in case the river melts at -30C I suppose... We really needn't have worried though as the next day when we drove over the bridge we saw that they were cutting ice blocks from the river to make all the sculptures and the ice was metres thick.

Boram and Sara returned empty handed. Flipping nimble Chinese hands!

And then off to a hotel that had promised us it specialised in Western food. We eagerly rushed in, nattering to the Koreans about how much they were in for a treat with a turkey dinner. It all started off well. There was a singer and a piano. Greek statues here and there. Becka and Sara had Borsch, a Russian soup, for starters while Boram and I had chicken salad. All rather nice. The only wine available was Great Wall, a fairly upmarket Chinese brand. It tasted absolutely foul. But still, it was wine. And the spoons were dessert ones, not soup ones. But still, soup.

But then, half way through our starter, a waitress appeared wanting us to pay there and then. Becka was in the process of informing her that we weren't paying before we'd finished when the main course of turkey arrived. Becka and I spluttered a bit as the plates were plonked down amongst our half empty starter plates. The waitress sensed trouble and vanished.

The menu had stated turkey and cranberry sauce. And there was indeed turkey and cranberry sauce. All nice and tasty. But I swear that normally the turkey is accompanied by vegetables and potatoes and all manner of fodder... But no we had some slices of bird and two slices of some vegetable that was more a garnish than a serving.

We ordered a plate of vegetables and another of fries. The vegetables were not abundant and the fries, as Sara pointed out, were not as good as McDonald's...

We paid up. I stole the toilet's loo roll. (Loo roll is as rare as hen's teeth in public toilets in China and I had stupidly forgotten to bring any. I hate Chinese toilets.) We left for Haagen Dasz and arrived seconds before they shut. We were all still rather hungry so we ordered scarily expensive ice cream. It was Christmas after all. The ice cream in Haagen Dasz is a work of art-although mine did look as though a chef had slapped it together 2 seconds before he finished for the day... which was fair enough I suppose. It was delicious- even the Green Tea flavour.

Another feature of the restaurant was that it had posters for placemats that explained how you dealt with Western food. It had a handy diagram explaining what course was eaten when. But it said that fish was eaten after the main meal and I always thought it came before... Although when I see Chinese people eating Western food they seem to stick to the Chinese way of sharing everything. There was a pair of Chinese women with a plate of steak between them that one had cut up. Although to be fair when we eat Chinese food we do so in a Western way, with our own meal. I very rarely see the sauce served on top of the rice too, like it is in the West. Here, you get a bowl of rice and the rest goes in the middle to be shared.

We had rather a nightmare trying to get back to the hostel as the buses had stopped running. Taxis in Harbin work by picking up one person here and then another here that wants to go in roughly the same direction. However we were four people so we needed a completely free taxi and there just weren't any. So, in the end we split up and Becka and I shared a taxi with Chinese couple who whispered about Russians. In Harbin they all think we are Russians and in Qingdao they all think we are American. Or French. A couple have not understood our English accents and thought we were speaking French...

On Boxing day we headed off to visit the 文庙, the Confucian Temple. Unlike most cultural sites in China it managed to escape the mass trashing during the Cultural Revolution and is in fact still in use as a temple. Also unusually for tourist sites in China it was deserted. Even more unusually it was free to enter. It was rather serene, this temple sleeping under a blanket of snow hidden down a snowy, tree lined avenue. Disturbed only by Becka jumping in snow drifts. We had a great time wandering around the beautiful, ancient, complex, the largest in northern China, with only ourselves and one other tourist. It was like some giant playground in the snow. There was a large statue of Confucius in the middle. Near the back was where the monks must live as I could hear music from one building. Sounded a bit like they were having a party but I'm sure it was a very solemn monky one.

It was so beautiful.

Eventually we were chased away by the cold to go and find lunch. Although we noticed we were indeed slowly getting used to the temperature. The key is to completely cover your face. I found that if you walked fairly quickly, even your toes would warm up. In fact there were times when my toes glowed quite warm.

We found a shaokao place for lunch and I happily slobbered my way through some lamb and sugared toast. Becka ordered aubergine but it came as some mutation of a banana split, except it was filled with garlic and not jam.

I knew there was a buddhist temple not too far away but as I had not been able to find a map for love nor money and it was actually no longer a real temple, we headed off to find the Korean Museum. The Koreans had spent the past few days saying they wanted to visit a "site important in Korean history" but hadn't been able to give me any more details which annoyed me slightly and I was rather sceptical about faffing there on a hint. (I had basically been the tour leader on this trip lol- I really can't help Taking Charge and the others were content to follow me around on random buses, trusting that I knew where I was going). Eventually they gave me a street name, 安升路, Ansheng Road, which didn't actually exist but I plumped for 安升街， Ansheng Street and by some miracle we did indeed find a building scribbled over in the Korean script. And I'm rather glad we did. It turns out that at the beginning of last century, when Korea was occupied by the Japanese, the Japanese general, Prince Ito, came to Harbin to meet some Russian ambassador. Seconds after disembarking he was shot by one 安重根. I write his name here in Chinese characters as Koreans still use characters for formal occasions. And I can't write the Korean alphabet. The Chinese pronunciation would be An Zhonggen. Now this An is revered both in the North and South of Korea as a freedom fighter. He cut off two of his fingers so he could sign an oath in his own blood vowing to achieve Korean independence. Indeed his handprint, with two stubby fingers, is very famous in Korea now. An was caught soon after the assassination, tried and hung. The museum was all in Korean or Chinese but there was one English language article from the time. The tone was that of a civilised Westerner who about tolerates the Japanese (it made fun of them wearing French court dress for the trial but still removing their shoes when inside). It was a very biased piece of reporting. It implied that when An was stoppped from defending himself, it was to show respect to the murdered general and in fact the judge should be commended on his impartiality. It also said one sentence that the public were asked to leave so as not to be upset by the details but in the next sentence said that it was a completely open trial...

I was glad the Sara and Boram could not read it.

It was fascinating to learn about Korean histoy. Not a subject I knew much about.

Then we walked to the russian restaurant we had visited earlier. I, of course, lead the way as I was the only one who had any idea where we were or what was going on. It was fairly straightforward to walk to 中央大街 but Boram now thinks that I am part homing pigeon because I could find my way through the little streets. Everywhere was full of stalls selling clothes, fruit and even hunks of meat. I suppose it was probably colder than a freezer in the street so a good place to keep it!

Dinner was a warming Russian stew followed by banana splits and fruit sundaes. We ordered those as Sara and Boram had been intrigued by our talk of banana split when we had been confronted by Becka's aubergine split earlier in the day. We also got a fruit sundae as that was British too. Predictably the Chinese chef had nearly.but.not.quite.got. the banana split right as it was slices of banana and not a whole one split... Plus there was a little Communist flag stuck in the middle next to the paper umbrella. Which I don't remember there being in school. Still it tasted very nice.

We attempted to visit a bar. We walked in and sat down. Mostly empty bar. Waiter came in and said it was 400元 to be in the bar because there was an "event on". We left.

We went back to the hostel and drank Hapi instead. Hapi is short for 哈尔滨啤酒, Haerbin Pijiu, Harbin beer. I like calling it Hapi. I prefer it to Qingdao beer but shush, don't tell anyone I said that.

In the taxi back we had to drive up a small hill. It had snowed a lot during the day and it soon became evident that this hill was going to prove tricky. Several cars had failed already and just sat there spinning their wheels pathetically. People were pushing others. Our taxi's momentum did not fill us with confidence. We spun inch by inch forwards. I began to worry we were going to have to get out and push but after a few nailbiting slidy moments we made it. Phew! Driving here is interesting as the roads, whilst regularly cleared, are still nonetheless covered in a thin layer of snow. And yet they still all drive as though it was dry tarmac, pulling out here and there and swerving around each other.

Monday was our last day in Harbin and we caught a bus to try to ge to the Siberian Tiger reserve. But we had to change buses and although we got off at the right stop (actually I lie but the important thing is we walked *back* to the right stop) we could not find hide nor hair of the next one so we gave in and got a taxi instead. The taxi went down a wrong road after seeing a sign for the tiger park but after remerging from Narnia we all noticed the huge letters saying to drive 700m further on. Which none of the five of us had noticed on the way in...

The Tiger park. Hmm. How to describe... It was odd. Just odd. We sat in a minibus and drove through various enclosures filled to the brim with tigers. Just tiger after tiger after tiger. And apparently a liger but it looked like a lion to me. You could buy a live chicken for 40元 to feed to the tigers or splash out a bit to work your way up the livestock chain for 2000元 to feed them a live cow. After the minibus ride we walked past some cages where the novelty cats, such as a white tiger, three panthers and a honey coloured tiger paced dementedly. The three panthers were all in one cage. Each panther had its own wall to pace. They would walk three paces that way, then three the other, and then three back again and then three...

There were also two cheetahs. I would have thought Harbin way too cold for cheetahs. Obviously not.

The Tiger place depressed me. I just kept repeating the words "at least the species is being preserved" but golly it was rather tragic...

Then off to Sun Island to finally see some of the famous sculptures. It was half price to get in as it technically wasn't finished yet. I bought some toffee haws on a stick. I asked the seller how much they were and he said 20元. This is the equivalent of charging a fiver for a chocolate bar. I laughed and after a bit of arguing I gave up and paid 10. It was still a massive rip off as they should be around 3-5 but I felt sorry for him as he can't get many customers in that spot. And they were delicious. I love toffee haws. Very Chinese of me.

The snow sculptures were fantastic. So detailed. They must be very skilled to be able to produce a fish swimming through reeds from snow. One sculpture was huge and featured a woman with a huge mane of hair that I have no idea how they managed to carve. There was some swans with spread wings. There was also a large replica of the wolf feeding Romulus and Remus. Why? I hear you ask. Who knows, China, who knows.

The park is a normal park most of the time so there was plenty of space for us to mess about in the snow. I made a snow angel. Boram and Sara had a snow war. By now we didn't really notice the cold-although I'd couldn't really feel my toes.

It was so special, wandering through the snow, amongst the beautiful art under the soft winter sun munching on my toffee haws. We walked by the river for a while. I was loving it. Becka was not. In the end I gave in to her plea of hypothermia and we headed back for dinner.

Previously at some of the big sculptures there had been the inevitable tug on my elbow and cry of "美女!!" (meinu, beautiful girl, it's what you call someone like me when you are being polite) and I was once again the star of several souvenir snaps. It always amuses my how shy some of them are to pose with me when they're the ones that asked in the first place... When we were leaving and I dashed to the side of the bridge for one more shot of the frozen river I went past a tour group from 湖北, Hubei province (near Beijing). I know this because they all got very excited and mobbed me for a photo. I ended up posing with about 15 different men in quick succession. Most just put their arms around me but one shook my hand for the photo. In the background I could see Becka, Boram and Sara wetting themselves with laughter. Eventually I managed to escape and Boram hurried over to shake my hand and pretended to want a photo...

Over dinner we compared our different experiences of being a laowai in China. Normally the Chinese think Boram and Sara are Chinese too and chatter at them to be rewarded with a blank stare. Apparently they get asked if they can speak 普通话, which is the standard Mandarin, as the asker assumes they can only speak one of the Chinese dialects. That amuses me as educated people can all speak passable 普通话 and Boram and Sara certainly do not look as though they are fresh from the countryside! They find it hilarious that Becka and I get stared at and photographed.

We had dinner in another shaokao restaurant. I *need* to find one of those in Qingdao. The owner loved having foreigners in. She gave us some very salty peanuts and loved that I said it was too salty for me. They like it when we can't handle their food. Intriguingly it was only 8角 for a lamb kebab when normally they are a full 元. 角, technically called jiao but called mao in spoken Chinese, like kuai for the yuan, is a tenth of a yuan. 10分 make a jiao. Nothing has a price that is counted in 分fen. I have only ever seen one fen note and that was one Daisy's student had found down the back of a sofa. I covet it but Daisy won't sell it, even for 1000 times its worth lol. It's in very good condition considering it's around 20 years old. Back when a bowl of rice would have cost only a few fen. Nowadays mao are only really used when buying fruit on the street. Mao notes annoy me intensely as they are effectively worthless and I keep acquiring them. My life is spent trying to foist them on others.

Anyway I digress. We wandered around a bit and I got a pineapple pie from McDonald's. I am starting to like them. Who needs apple pie??? We went into the underground market below the main street and I bought some lacquer swan earrings because Mum wasn't there to stop me. The seller wouldn't let me haggle which was odd because places like that normally do. She wrote the price on a calculator which is also normally a sign of a haggling place. *Is suspicious*

Then we had some tea in a rather twee Russian restaurant that ressembled a Victorian tea shop. Apart from the picture that at first glance looked like rocky seashore but on closer inspection was a naked woman. For the first time in four months, I was in a room where Caucasians outnumbered Asians. Wiiiieerrddd. SO much colourrrrrr. Becka and I spent a while eavesdropping to work out where everyone was from. The family behind us sounded English and we talked about them in Chinese but abruptly stopped when the mother spoke Chinese to the waitress. Then we talked in Chinese about the Russian couple behind Sara and Boram. I mentioned that the boy was not good looking enough for the rather stunning Russian blonde. Then we stopped that when they spoke Chinese to the waiter. Then we tried to work out who the family were to the left of Boram but we just couldn't quite make out what language it was. At times it seemed English but at others not. As we couldn't hear we knew they weren't American! The girl had plaits in so I was going with German/Scandinavian. Becka went and pretended to read the menu over Boram's shoulder but still couldn't hear. I tried but also couldn't quite. We were attracting funny looks so in the end we bribed Boram to go and ask in her best English.

They were from New Zealand.

Still we'd taught Boram and Sara the meaning of "eavesdrop" and found out the Chinese equivalent (偷听, literally "steal listen" I like that translation!)

We left to catch our plane, but not without me pinching the cafe's loo roll. It's gold, that stuff.

We leisurely strolled back to the bus stop and arrived at 8:35pm. The last bus was 8:30. We all went "noooo" then 2 seconds later the bus we wanted arrived and our "noooo" turned smoothly to "yeeaaahhhh".

Our plane was leaving at 12am so no rush.

We leisurely collected our bags from the hostel, leisurely bought some beer from a chaoshi and then caught a taxi. We drove leisurely to the airport as it had snowed all day so there was a 60km speed limit. No rush. Plane doesn't leave until 12.

We pootled into the airport at 22:15. I noticed that the sign said check-in stopped at 22:30. This was odd, I thought. To stop check-in an hour and a half before departure. Oh well. We checked in and wandered through security to arrive at our gate. Everyone was queuing to get on the plane. Odd. I quietly checked my phone and noted with interest that our flight actually was scheduled to leave at 11pm not 12am...

"Lol," I said to Becka, "lolz this plane is actually leaving at 11. I thought it was 12 haha. Imagine if we hadn't decided to get to the airport so early. Haha."

Becka then spent the next 5 minutes detailing what she would have done to me if we had planned to arrive just in time for a 12am flight and had missed the plane.

I explained the concept of "all's well that end's well" to Boram and Sara.

Although to be honest, the other three probably should have made sure they'd known the flight details too... I know I'd Taken Charge but I'm not the tour guide...

When we took off I noticed that the runway was still largely covered in snow. Oh well, obviously not a problem!

Aaaaaand back to Ol Qingers. We got back around 2am. I was so tired I slept through my alarm which is rather unusual for me. Today, at -2c, felt very pleasant and warm. Very warm.

I really liked Harbin. It was very...alive. Most of Qingdao's life is stuck up in tall towers but in Harbin it's very in your face. It might be freezing, but that just makes life burn all the more brilliantly. I suppose that living somewhere as hard as that, you must be determined to enjoy it. Hence the ice sculptures. I am going to try to tempt Mum to come back with me in the summer when she visits.

So that was my Christmas. It might not have been spent with my loved ones, but it's certainly one I'll never forget! Pictures to follow.