Winter in China - Brrrr!

Well, winter here is in full force, but it's actually not as bad as I expected it to be (I write that as I sit comfortably in our very warm apartment!). Because it's so dry here and there's usually not much wind, it doesn't seem that cold. But in saying that, at 7.00 in the morning when I leave for the subway, it's still dark and around -4 degrees. It takes about 15 minutes to walk to the subway, and then another 20 minutes from the subway to school. By the time I get there, half of my face feels frozen! It's only about 4 degrees coming home from school so I can't complain about that! On the couple of days that it has been overcast, it has snowed, but not heavy or long enough to leave a white cityscape.

Leaving Beijing last week about 2 hours to the north was another story! The photos below are of White River in Hairou/Miyun Districts. A friend from work and I went on a 12km hike along the iced river and had a hilarious time! The scenery was gorgeous, but the fun part was each time we became complacent with our steps, a foot would slip out from under you, accompanied by a gasp and a fit of laughter! The biggest laugh was falling through a part of the ice - luckily it was only crossing a shallow section!

Shanghai

We flew on to Shanghai and walked down to the Bund, the waterfront promenade lined with beautiful English colonial buildings on one side, and skyscrapers on the other. We also visited the old section of town with meandering alleyways jam-packed with visitors. The enormous number of people visiting Shanghai over the October break was beyond belief, and it was a struggle in some places to move without getting stuck in the crowds.

Zhouzhiang is a beautiful ancient canal village about one hour away from Shanghai. The old architecture and romantic looking stone bridges were just beautiful! Unfortunately, half of Shanghai decided to join us and we spent the day fighting to get through the masses of crowds and were unable to really stop and admire where we were!

Ancient China

With Mum, Dad and our friend Annette in tow, we headed to Xian for the October break.
Our first part of the city to explore was the Muslim Quarter, a short walk away from our hotel. It took us past the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower to a fantastic bazaar selling all kinds of souvenirs as well as street food. Despite the constant drizzle, we spent hours wandering through the lanes checking everything out, and doing our fair share of shopping!

The next morning, we didn’t let the rain deter us from seeing the Terracotta Warriors, one of the most famous archaeological finds in the world – and it didn’t disappoint! There must have been thousands of soldiers all lined up, occasionally separated by horses and chariots. Each of the warriors had so much detail carved into them, the gravity of undertaking such a task was quite overwhelming. There were still many pits that hadn’t yet been excavated due to the need for more modern technology to better preserve the original colours.

On our final day in Xian, we hired bikes and rode the 14km around the ancient wall. It offered fabulous views of different parts of the city, as well as the moat surrounding it. It was lots of fun!

Afterwards, we wandered around an old section of town that had markets and quirky little art shops. It was a really nice place to explore.