Harbin, Day Two

I spent the morning of Day 2 on a three-hour drive to a mountain resort called Yabuli, which was the site of the 1996 Asian Winter Games.

The place was nice enough but, sad to say, it looked to not have changed very much since '96...I set my things down in my hotel room and wasted no time getting geared up to hit the slopes! 

I like to start off with the warm-up runs, like the photo below, before I do any tricky runs :-) 

As I mentioned in the Day 1 post, Harbin is cold! I remembered my Boy Scout days when I proudly earned my 'polar bear' badge for braving the elements and camping in -17 degree weather for a night with my dad and the troop in Fraser, CO. Well, it's a bit different for people who grow up in this climate! The next morning, I went out early to snap sunrise-over-the-hills pictures, and, much to my inner Boy Scouts dismay, I see a crew of workers who spend every night in tents in below 0 weather! They were moving about like the 6:30am cold was nothing at all!

Harbin, Day One

I spent a few days on a real wintry getaway and headed up to the far northern city of Harbin which, if my map is accurate, is somewhere between Winterfell and The Wall. The first day featured a visit to a tiger park to see cute, furry faces like this guy: 

 This park is unique in that it is, essentially, a Jurassic Park for tigers. Tourists load up on buses that have bars installed over the windows and drive around open 'safari' land where the cats roam. So I got to see somewhat nervous people, like this guy, as a big cat walks right past his window:

In the evening, I went to Zhaolin Park where blocks of ice, delicately assembled, come to life at night:

I particularly enjoyed the ice sculpture competition pieces, like these:

 

The weather was sunny all throughout the day, but even then, lots of warm layers are required, and all the more so at night!

B-day in China

Sunday marks my second birthday spent in China, which I suppose is why I ascribe any significance to it in the first place, other than the fact that I share this b-day with a couple of really cool people: my twin bro, Michael Jordan, Denise Richards, Michael Bay, to name a few. Of course, I do appreciate any good chance to get together with family for food, but after passing the 18, and then 21, age milestones, the actual act of growing one day or one year older does not seem particularly significant to me. And since I can't be back home for the food with family (siblings and parents will recall the tear-jerking b-day at my favorite Ethiopian Restaurant!), then the point is altogether moot. I guess one cool thing that comes from living in China on my b-day is that I get to be the first to call and wish my twin a happy b-day, since I'll be celebrating our day 15 hours ahead of Colorado time.

That being said, I was very pleasantly taken aback when my co-workers made a very big deal and threw an incredible surprise party for me last Friday.

Since my actual b-day falls on a non-work day and in the middle of a week-long holiday (Chinese New Year), my boss made a strategic decision to hold my party early- when I least suspected anything! I arrived at work, prepared for a "quarterly meeting" between my Marketing Department and the Admissions Department, at our second campus, only to receive a call that the meeting had been shifted back to our office at the first campus. So I hailed a taxi and arrived back at the main campus a few minutes later. I was completely surprised to see my co-workers, as well as some of their families, gathered around a chocolate "smorgasbord" and surrounded by decorations! By this time, I realized that the meeting was a ruse all along!

 

The chocolate came at a price, however, and my penance was to take in a helium-balloon mouthful and make a speech! Everyone had a good laugh!

Eggsceptionally Eggspensive, and that's no yolk!

I do apologize for the bad pun. There really doesn't need to be much said for this blog post, because the pictures say it all. I went to the Shanghai Museum after another expat told me about the incredible Fabergé eggs that are temporarily on display. Seeing these certainly fried-up my interest in jumping on any boats that are Russia-bound this summer!