Harbin, the Ice Festival

Once you've fought with all the layers, it's time to brave the cold and see the influence Russia brough to this very northern city. It quickly manifests itself in a disused Cathedral that houses oddly lit religious art: 

And old paved roads in the city centre are dotted with ice--slides, sculptures, anything you could imagine:

Close up:

Outside, you still bundle up and huddle for warmth:

Because China is a genius for its knock-off products, this restaurant is actually packed to the rafters. Who needs Nando's when Nanbo's will do?

On to Stalin Park and the frozen river that hosts an amusement park of sorts. Ice swimming, sledding across the river banks, even a ferris wheel dots the landscape:

Sled dogs!

Bumper sledding:

And for the main attraction, you head to the Ice Festival at Sunset:

And are greeted with a veritable world of iconic buildings made entirely out of bricks of ice:

It's colourful:

Hagia Sophia:

Taipei:

St. Basil's Cathedral:

From time to time you check that you can still feel your hands:

Ganesh, made of ice:

And glimpse the world below:

No visit would be complete without the Great Wall of Snow:

And dancing in the shadows:

Seriously, China on crack.

The Layers You Put on to Go Outside

This will be difficult to imagine but Harbin is China on crack. Putting aside the International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival and ensuing tourism madness (which I will get to), let's start with the temperature.

Located in China's northernmost province and sandwiched between Siberian Russia and silent North Korea, Harbin shares a latitude line with the likeness of Lyon, Portland and Montreal. But unlike these cities, chilly Siberian winds rip through the low lying flat, dry land and wreak havoc. On the tourists, that is. Locals walk around in coats, eating ice cream and scoffing at anyone who looks even remotely bothered.

On this particular balmy end-of-January weekend, we set off into mildish climes:

For my fahrenheit friends, we're talking high temperatures of -1 and lows of, well, -24. Plus the windchill which I won't even factor into this equation.

In order to compete (survive?) in conditions this drastic, layers are essential. For anyone this would be the case, but I was born in California and, despite many long years of acclimatizing to Michigan, the thin California blood seems to have not left my body. I get cold and I stay cold.

As such, the layering process starts inside. You can only do this two/three minutes before leaving because thanks to the power of dirty coal, the insides of all buildings rise above sweltering. Getting ready early just guarantees a layer of sweat that then freezes upon contact with outside air.

Layer one, the base:

 Layer two, the outerwear:

 Layer three, the boots:

Layer four, the pollution guard:

 Layer five, the down coat(s):

Crazy part one ready. Onto the true madness! 

Laundry Day

There must be at least 500 residences in my little longtang (or lilong depending on your internet research), the semi-official name for long lanes of houses in Shanghai. The houses vary in size, courtyard and architecture style but my longtang consists of little wooden-staired lane houses and slightly higher apartment blocks.  I live in a six-story block. The communal courtyard is strewn with bicycles, e-bikes and children and I've even made friends with the lady who does the early morning trash bin maintenance. In the backdrop, housing high rises loom, the cautionary tale of what gentrification would like the neighborhood to become.

I love my little neighbourhood--there's a tiny vegetable stall at the front and random people who serve as impromptu guards at the North and South entrances.  There's also at least five different ways to get in and out of the complex; each way takes the bravery and experimentation of walking down dark alleys with unidentifiable smells in the hopes that a gate will take you to the main street. Usually they do but some unseen security guard gets to locking up the lesser used (and, sadly, closer to the shops with the chocolate) gates post 6pm. 

On any given day, usually the weekend when my alarm doesn't go off at 5:45am, the longtang comes alive with a series of noises, smells and visual assaults to the senses. Usually it's the lady downstairs gutting a chicken or the neighbours tinkering away at 7am construction but yesterday's wander took me past the dual gem of drying fish and drying granny panties: 

What's concerned me about China for a while is that I only really ever see one or two pairs of pants drying at a time. Is there an alternate daily washing schedule for people's unmentionables? Do people own only two pairs of knickers? Do they only wash their undies once a week? 

I'm on the hunt to solve this mystery. It's the right way to kick off 2016.

Tis the Season

For the flu.

After a grueling ten-week half term term filled with marking, marking and more marking, I bid a three-week farewell to the PRC and boarded a flight to nations more discerning in their chicken part consumption. Since Paul's health has taken a turn to the more dramatic, this means ten days in London followed by ten days in Michigan. Thank Buddha for my tendency to hoard frequent flyer miles.

I boarded the BA flight from Shanghai on Saturday, generally dubbed the 'Dulwich flight' due to the mass migration of staff and students back to the motherland, with a minor cough in tow. I'd been lugging around a pollution-induced cold for roughly three weeks--imagine a sneeze behind the nose that never quite comes to fruition, a tickly throat that never quite blossoms into a cold and you get the gist of it. Sadly, as per usual on holiday, things ripened into a full-blown cold. Yesterday, a low grade fever and flu-like symptoms came out to play. I've been marooned on the couch for something like 48-hours; I don't handle idleness very well. Just beyond my window is a world of London I want to explore--Oxford Street and mince pies, mulled wine and the National Gallery, carol services, Borough Market.

It's almost like my body is responding to the clean air.  It hates it. And considering China is currently experiencing some of the worst pollution it has ever experienced, I really have to wonder.

I've become annoying in my desire to escape. Paul, bored of my moaning, took me on a journey to Tesco. The ten-minute walk there exhausted me. Inside, screaming babies, people speaking english, the self check out not working, all drove me to new levels of crazy. I reckon there's a degree of reverse culture shock going on, something I really wasn't expecting.

In an attempt to occupy myself, I'm resorting to blogging. Unfortunately, I've migrated my photos from Google+ to Google+ photos and in the process don't entirely understand how to upload images directly from my phone to the blog. If anyone knows how to do this, please feel free to leave me a comment below. Otherwise, this whole process of blogging various  journeys in going to become rather tedious.

In short, bah humbug. I'm ready to feel better now.

Thanksgiving Dinner, Chinese Style

When in Shanghai, it only seems polite that, on Thanksgiving, one eats Chinese food. This isn't your run of the mill Chinese Chinese food. Fortune Cookie is the love child of two Cornell grad friends (one Chinese-American whose parents own Chinese restaurants in the US) who decided to move to Shanghai and open an American Chinese Restaurant. That's right--American Chinese food is now a genre. And it doesn't disappoint.

Let's start with the menu--a culinary smattering of everything you'd want in a US takeaway from Sweet and Sour to Mooshu to General Tso's, the sauces taste just like what Americans think Chinese food should taste like:

.

And the owners are totally charming, totally young, totally getting everything right in what could have been a disastrous business venture.  They're been written up in various huge global publications from CBS news to the BBC and they're taking it all in stride.  The clientele, a curious mix of expats and Chinese, keep coming back for more.

What's not to love? You finish your meal, you get a fortune cookie. You need takeaway? How about those little white boxes so ubiquitous with American television shows that the rest of the world outside the US didn't think they were real. Check and Check! 

Perhaps the best part for me is that this local little gem is a five minute walk from my flat. And if i'm feeling really lazy, ohhhh delivery. For Thanksgiving though, I have a little tradition--find the most unabashed American meal possible and do it justice. Karen, Gemma and I opted against the day's special, mooshu turkey pan fried in a wok, but plenty of other filled the rafters for exactly the same experience.

Any way you look at it, it's winning.

Fungi

Look closely. They're on a log. In the refrigerator section of a fancy Shanghai grocery store.

And the log doesn't come cheap--£5. Because, China. 

La Cucaracha

For all these years if spiders were the insect I feared the most, it was only because I'd never come face-to-face, glove-to-glove with the rat of the insect world, the cockroach.

They're big, they're fast, they proliferate and multiply when even threatened with murder. Having lived in a temperate climate for much of my life, I knew little of this. The cockroaches of my myths only found their way out of dirty hovels of basement apartments. They lived amongst the detritus of waste products at the back of derelict alleys.

In moving across the river, I'd heard rumours of this mythical insect. In Puxi, the buildings are old and the cockroaches are plenty, my friends warned. I scoffed, thinking that my apartment was newly remodeled and I had an ayi who cleaned my flat on a regular basis. 

But subtropical climates are the breeding ground for beasts of the wild. 

Post dinner on a non-descript Wednesday, I went to wash my dishes and was confronted with one sauntering languidly across my kitchen floor. I screamed repeatedly, three protracted, piercing yells like the signal of an impending freight train. It hightailed itself to the corner on its six scrawny legs and absconded somewhere underneath, possibly between the handbag and gym bag I had dumped on the floor. 

Cue little girl screams and invective expletives. In a week of deadlines, lesson observations and medical updates from London, it became the cockroach that broke the camel's back. 

I whipped into a raged frenzy and chased the damn thing around the tiny kitchen of my tiny apartment. It cowered under a shelving unit before making a break for my bedroom.  Cue more incessant screaming. Which must have stunned it into a new path because it made a beeline for the living room and disappeared.

Never to be seen again.

The next day I relayed this story back to my colleagues, the beacons of Shanghai knowledge. Instead of consolation I was greeted with horror stories, a virtual best-of worst cockroach stories. Ones that fly, ones the size of your hand. And then the horrible question: 'Was it an adult cockroach or a baby one? Because if it's a baby one, that means there's more, many, many more.' Um. Mine was more a teenager--bulking up but on its way to maturity. Unfortunately, where there's one, there's many.

I was caught unawares on my next sighting.  Sitting on the toilet, a toddler-aged cockroach languished in the corner. It didn't move. And so I had time to flush, then wield the mop and thwack it on the head repeatedly, screaming a warrior cry all the while. It fought for its life but I had the benefit of a handle. And eventually, it met its demise.

A week later, an infant cockroach crawled out of my rather unsuccessful attempt at growing chiles.

Now it seems the flat is somehow no longer my own. Cockroach bombs and boxes are out of season now so I've settled for a can of Raid. I also engage in a rather formal process of introducing myself to the usually unseen invaders by opening my door, loudly, turning on the light and stepping in by making as much noise as possible. It's a regular routine. Symbiosis?