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.