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!