We Are back on air

Though I don't know for how long. For those of you reading the blog and wondering where we disappeared to, blogs are banned in China! We did our best to get around this by re-routing the service through a Dutch site but the Chinese took us off the air within a few mins.

What to do??? We were concerned that our families would be worried.

So to a small handful of people we sent stories and pics via email. This has been quite time consuming. So if we haven't contacted you, we know you will understand why. We have just had the word on a virtual network that could get around the ban and so this is our first testing of the system. If we disappear again though, you will know we have been discovered!!!

We are currently in the town of Pingyao eating brekky in a courtyard house that was built in 1736. And it really looks as you would expect from a Chinese dwelling. Wood latticework on the windows, red lanterns hanging from the ceiling and set in labrynthine streets. Stunning. I make a point of this as the rest of China so far looks more like Australia than China! Very westernised, modern progressive. 

We have just got off the train from Beijing (12 hours) and nothing is open yet.

Once we settle in we'll see if we can post some of the pics we have taken. Have some real beauties.Can't believe what we have achieved in just one week! Including a 10km walk along The Great Wall of China - in snow yet under perfect blue skies.  Mind you it is freezing here. In fact it is below freezing here- well below. Yesterday in Beijing it was -15C with a wind chill of -21C. It was our coldest day yet - even colder than Harbin in the snow me thinks!

Looking forward to the day ahead in this lovely old town. Please excuse typos, spellos and grammos as we dash these comms out. Cheers us

Are we there yet?

Here we are at KL airport ready to fly to Guangzhou.  It's 5am and we have been up since 2. Not likely to check into hotel in Harbin till 6pm. Long Day!

Got into KL at 7am yesterday and travelled 1 hour by bus to city hotel. Yummy brekky - then went to Petronus towers. Awesome construction. And sooo clean and shiny on the outside. Imagine Gordon Ramsay's kitchen pots all scrubbed and gleaming and hanging with artistic precision - that's the Pteronus Towers.

SHopping centre inside was an eye popper. Went (window) shopping at Cartiers, and Chanel and finished with some (window) shopping at Mont Blanc, Burberry and Yves St Laurent.  Saved a fortune!!!

Have some pics but will have to wait to post as we need to get thru Customs now.

TTFN. Doll and Chairman Miaow

One more sleep to go!!!

We are making our lists and checking them twice (or in Chairman Miaow's case - 14 times).  Our bags are now filled with fleece, down, medications (just in case) and more papers than Office Works.

Just the dying, de-hairing and 'detoxing' to go. That will have us looking our best in all those holiday snaps, where you will have to recognise us by the whites of our eyes, just visible above the neckwarmer and balaclava.

So...when you wake up on Tuesday morning we will be in Kuala Lumper shopping for T-shirts. And when you cook dinner on Wednesday night, we will be trying to land the plane in snow at Harbin.

Should we be unsuccessful at the latter, you might like to place your requests for bequeathments in the comments section of our posts. I'm sure Little-Miss-J will do her best to accommodate.
(PS. house, car and bank accounts are already taken.)

And what do you think of our brand new designer heading? Ducktastic? Thanks to the Chairman's superb technical skills we were finally able to get it loaded.

Just remember, now that we are in 2010, our older posts (one with map!) are all filed under the sidebar heading '2009'. Just click on that and all will be revealed (or keep scrolling down the posts).

 So... a happy New Year to you all.  Watch this space!

Mmnnn... what to pack!

Our first two ports of call are Kuala Lumper followed by Harbin, China. Now, let's see the current temperatures for those respective cities.

Weather for Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malaysia  - Add to iGoogle 23°C | °F Current: Mostly Cloudy Wind: N at 6 km/h Humidity: 88% Mon 32°C | 23°C Tue 31°C | 24°C Wed 32°C | 24°C Thu 33°C | 24°C   Weather for Haerbin, Heilongjiang, China  - Add to iGoogle

-18°C | °F Current: Clear Wind: S at 21 km/h Humidity: 72% Mon -11°C | -23°C Tue -11°C | -25°C Wed -11°C | -20°C Thu -7°C | -16°C

So let's see now... that would be T-shirt and thongs, followed by long johns, thermals, down jacket and balaclava.  Got it.

The 'Marauders' Map

As I promised in the last post...

This map of China looks like it has come from a sixth-grader's social science book. Perfect!

Now, I think our new landing point (to be confirmed) is Guangzhou or perhaps GuiZhou or perhaps...can't tell - they all look alike. Anyway, a lot further south (than Tianjin). From that airport we fly straight to Harbin way up north. I doubt we'll be doing what the chap in the pic is doing but we will be seeing stunning, house-sized ice-carvings.

From Harbin we fly south to Beijing; Pingyao (old city in original form) followed by Xian (Terracotta Warriors - whoohoo). By that time we will be 2 weeks into our trip. From there we fly south to Guilin (Yangshuo, Longsheng) to see Karst mountains & rice terraces for a few days.

Our final couple of days will be spent in Hong Kong. Both in and out journeys are via Kuala Lumper. We actually get to spend a day there at the start of our trip. Looking forward to that as well. Cheers.

PS. When you have finished with the map, just tap it with your wand and say, "Mischief Managed."


 

The Best Laid Plans...

Well, after 6 months of having booked our seats to China, and several weeks of meticulously planning the stages of our journey within that vast land, we found out just yesterday afternoon that ALL flights to Tianjin have been cancelled till February! Apparently it's due to bad weather.

I suspect they have pretty much the same bad weather conditions there in winter EVERY year, so why they were selling airline tickets into that city at that time of the year, goodness only knows! Perhaps this explains the more than reasonable cost of the airline tickets!!

Apparently flights were cancelled back on November 23rd - weeks ago. Air Asia claims they sent an email to advise of it but we certainly didn't receive it. 
Don't you reckon someone there would twig when, three weeks post cancellation, the customer hasn't called back to reclaim their airfare??? As it was we only found out by accident that they had been cancelled. We would have turned up at the airport at midnight bags in tow. Can you imagine?
Poor Chairman Miaow spent all of yesterday afternoon checking other options. At this point we are flying into a completely different city (near Hong Kong) - so YAY we will get to China. We are still waiting on confirmation that we have a flight from that city to Harbin. Should be ok.
Once we are clear on all destinations we will upload a map so you folks know exactly what/where we are raving on about.

It All Starts Here

Ok. This marks the start of our ascent (or descent) into the realm of cyber-speak.
 
We - KL (Chairman Miaow) and SPC (ChinaDoll), have decided to take a very modern approach to holidays this year and keep our family and friends informed via 'our blog'.

So watch this space through January 2010, when we post stories and pics of our trip to China.