It’s been a wintery, Christmassy week in Beijing. I had plans to shop with friends at the Christmas market and snow falling all day added to the Christmassy mood. Some plastic display trees had fake snow, others were covered in REAL snow!
I came to China for a year, but it took me 6 to decide I was staying. This place is the first place I made a real home. Buying a Christmas tree was a symbol that I really was home – I didn’t have to grow up or go back to Australia, I was home HERE.
It is definitely winter in Beijing now. As I walked home just now it was was -9 (16 F). The forecast MAXIMUM tomorrow is -2 (29 F). While I may call one of Australia’s coldest cities home, it is still Australia, and nothing like the cold of Beijing.
Autumn is my favourite time of year in Beijing. It’s crazybusy but I enjoy it! We have great weather, get a holiday (helps the weather), and we have our annual youth camps. We had over 200 people from at least 15 countries (5 continents).
The first week of October is a holiday in China. Flags go up everywhere, red and yellow flower arrangements brighten every complex, and almost the whole country goes on holiday. Great weather adds to the festive feel.
The scenery along the Li river was wonderful – huge bamboo stands along the riverside dwarfed the boats, then were dwarfed by the karsts that reared up behind them. At times, wisps of cloud swept along the karsts – it was so beautiful!
My family came to Beijing to celebrate my 30th birthday with me – my parents, my sisters, my brother in law and his brother. They arrived in four different lots, and so they didn’t all do the same things in Beijing, but it was still a really great time!
I first visited Jiuzhaigou National Park in China’s Sichuan province with my parents in October 2009. I was surprised at how different my second experience was! It was early summer as opposed to Autumn, so there was a big colour difference.
Our 10 hour bus ride up the Min River valley from Chengdu to Songpan and across a long plateau and then down into Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan province – more interesting than it sounds!
Yu Gardens were as beautiful as I remembered, and it was my first time to visit the City Gods temple.
My previous posts about conversations (in Chinese) with Chinese locals have been pretty popular, so I thought it was time to again record for you a few snippets of interesting conversations I’ve had in the past few weeks. On the plane from Singapore to Beijing I was seated next to a nice man from va small town Shandong…
Stefan is one of my Beijing kids; he has been living in Singapore the last two years while doing his compulsory national service there (6 weeks to go!) He was at the airport to pick me up when I arrived despite the fact that my plane landed before 5:30am. We went back to his family’s…
Stories From Tanya 