The season of peace and glove

A belated Happy New Year to you all – and as you can see, it’s new year, new look, for From Scotland to Siberia. The previous template (chosen in some haste) was just too – well – pink, and that Georgia font, while it looked lovely in our wedding invitations, is a bit too curly for on-screen reading, so I decided to go sans serif. If anyone actually preferred the old look, please tell me, and I might think about it. Or I might just ignore you.

Anyway, you’ll be glad to know they let us back into China - although I did have Amazon’s number in my phone and primed as we came through Immigration, just in case! (See earlier post).

We managed to pass a very pleasant and restful few weeks with our families and friends in the UK, despite spending rather more time than one might wish being forced to read the Daily Express advice on how to avert the recession by not buying anything (not sure quite how that works), enduring endless discussions about the Strictly Come Dancing phone-in votes scandal (what?), sitting in doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries, having injections, and rushing around buying up the entire contents of Boots and Morrison’s, trying desperately to stock up on all the things we can’t buy in China. We bought, or were given, so much stuff that I bravely decided to forego the purchase of more Marmite, resolving instead to eke out my remaining third of a jar until the next visit home. In the end we had to buy another suitcase so I could have carried it after all. It’s a tragedy.

But not as tragic as the tale which I’m about to tell you, concerning the World’s Most Expensive Mittens.

I purchased the WMEMs back in August at Blues the Ski Shop in Edinburgh. I don’t mind giving the shop a wee bit of free publicity there, as they are easily the best stocked, most helpful and definitely the most polite of all the ski- and outdoor shops in the city – and believe me, after last week, I know what I’m talking about.

Prior to moving out here, we had been given a ‘cold weather clothing allowance’ with which to buy outdoor wear suitable for Harbin in winter, and knowing not much about that kind of thing, we went to said shop and told them we were moving to ‘somewhere cold’.

‘How cold?’ asked the nice laddie. ‘Are we talking Alps? Rockies?’

‘Try Himalayas’, we replied. ‘Or Siberia’.

‘How cold does it get?’ he enquired.

‘Ooh, minus 35-ish’, we said.

He promptly ushered us towards a special section labelled ‘Mega Expensive Clothing For Lunatics’ (well, it may as well have been) and proceeded to give us the low-down on coats with ceramic bead inserts, thermals spun from the wool of specially reared and individually named sheep whose progress you could follow on a website (seriously), and last but not least the benefits of down-filled ski mittens. Basically the moral of the story in all cases seemed to be: modern artificial fibres may now be very advanced and capable of withstanding great extremes of weather, but at the end of the day, nothing – apologies to the vegetarians amongst you but this is the word of an expert here – nothing beats natural materials when it comes to keeping out the cold.

Now it has to be said that I do tend to suffer with cold hands and feet, and we’d been warned that ordinary fleece, woollen or even leather gloves simply wouldn’t cut it in Harbin, so getting a good pair was high on my priority list. I tried on a few of the less fancy pairs in the shop but wasn’t satisfied with the fit. ‘OK’, I said in the end. ‘Show me your down-filled mittens. Do your worst.’

Well, it was love at first sight. They were cream-coloured on the back, quilted, with a black leather palm and a fleecy lining. They came down over the wrist like a gauntlet and could be tightened or loosened by means of a velcro strap at the base of the hand. When I put my hand inside, my whole body felt warm, and they fitted like a – well, you know, a thing that fits very well.

They were £55. For a pair of mittens. But I just couldn’t resist.

It was late November before I had a chance to give the WMEMs their inaugural outing. The temperature had dropped to about minus 12 by day, minus 20 by night, but my hands were fabulously toasty. Outside, I couldn’t feel a thing (or, indeed, do anything either, as they tended to lend a sort of toy-soldier effect to one’s hand movements and make it impossible to open doors or pick things up – but hey, I was warm!). Indoors, even in a car, I had to remove them immediately or I’d have spontaneously combusted. The cream colour had already proved to be hopelessly impractical in a soot-stained city like Harbin, but I kept sponging them gently since they professed to be dry-clean only.

As it happened, I didn’t actually go out much during December, so I’d probably worn them on no more than about four occasions when it was time to fly home for Christmas. I reckoned I wouldn’t need them in the UK, and certainly not in Shanghai where we spent a few days at either end of the holiday (though in practice it turned out to be chillier in both places last week than we’d anticipated), and so contemplated leaving them behind, but remembering that we’d be arriving back into Harbin on a January night at temperatures of minus 25, I decided to take them with me.

I wore them as we left the house, then took them off for the car journey to the airport, taking care to put them on the floor with my handbag and not on my lap so that I wouldn’t forget they were there when I stood up. I carried them into the airport, and then, in the check-in queue, frustrated by having too many things to carry, I hurriedly shoved them into the backpack which I was using as hand luggage.

And that was the last I saw of them. Or I should say, of one of them. Peter was getting something else out of the backpack that night at the hotel in Shanghai when he said, ‘Oh, one of your gloves is here.’

‘They’re both there’, said I.

‘No’, he said. He searched the bag. I searched the bag. We searched our other bags. There was, most definitely and most, most tragically, only one WMEM.

I’m not ashamed to say I cried. (It’d been a long day.) I am, however, slightly ashamed by my Paris Hilton-like behaviour which followed.

Knowing I’d had them at Harbin airport, I got Peter to phone Kevin, who dutifully phoned the airport and harangued the lost property department, left luggage and the head of cleaning regarding the loss of the ‘very special and expensive’ glove which his boss’s wife had obviously dropped there. The next day I made him phone them again and do the same thing. But all to no avail.

The next day, we flew to Edinburgh, where I had resolved that at all costs I MUST replace the WMEMs with EXACTLY the same ones. Never mind that we had used up our cold weather clothing allowance. Never mind that I could probably buy something very similar in China and claim the money back. I had to have them, and I had to have them NOW (or at least before that flight back to Harbin).

Sadly there wasn’t time before Christmas, so it was last week, early in January, when I eventually went back to Blues and talked to another helpful young man. No, they didn’t have those, but they had the same make in white for £70. Even I baulked at this. Or these, which were not quite as good but very similar, and which felt actually a bit less toy-soldierish and were only £40, but they didn’t have my size. They could try their Glasgow branch? No, I said, I’m leaving the country tomorrow. He suggested a couple of other shops.

I then spent two afternoons trudging up and down the central shopping streets of Edinburgh in search of down-filled ski mittens. No one had them. ‘People don’t really use down much these days’, the uber-cool dude in the snowboard shop informed me, condescendingly. ‘Down tends to be a bit too warm for skiing’, grunted a very surly Northern Irish guy in another shop. ‘Did I say I wanted them for skiing?’, I barked back in intense irritation, being by now in at least my seventh shop. By then they didn’t even have to be the same ones, but I was unshakeable on the down. Thermal micro mega-warm ultra-therm-tech go snow-proof hyper-fab heat-shield super techno fleece just WOULD NOT BE WARM ENOUGH.

Finally, crushed and defeated, I bought a pair of ordinary thermal gloves in Milletts for £12. It was the coldest day in the UK for – ooh, some number of years – check the papers. ‘Do you want to wear them now?’ asked the nice young lad. ‘Most people are, today.’

‘No thanks,’ I replied, ‘I’m going somewhere MUCH colder than here.’ ‘There’s nowhere colder than here,’ he said glumly. I couldn’t help but disabuse him. He apologised.

There was just one slim hope left. On our return to China, I kept the single glove in my hand luggage to show to the lost property people at Harbin airport, just in case they had found the other one and had kept it for me for all these weeks. Our flight into Harbin on Saturday night was delayed, and our poor sweet driver, Mr Li, had been waiting patiently for us for an hour. Despite this, I still insisted on keeping him hanging on further while I found out where the lost property office was. This took some time, as the first six people we asked didn’t speak English, and when Peter found the appropriate word in his phrase book and showed it to them, they kept trying to usher us through the security gates and couldn’t understand that we had just arrived on a plane.

In the end we phoned Kevin again and got him to explain that I was looking for a glove I’d lost on the 17th December. When prompted, I waved the remaining WMEM at them. Eventually the message got through and they went to check, but came back shaking their heads. Alas, all hope was lost. I sat, grieving, with my poor lonely WMEM and contemplated hanging it on the wall as a trophy, while wondering how on earth I would be able to go the Harbin Ice Festival in inferior gloves. It was a sad night.

…..

Last night, Peter went to the supermarket, and took my (now empty) backpack – which I had carried the length and breadth of Britain for three weeks, and unpacked and re-packed at least four times in the process - to carry home the shopping.

He had finished unpacking it when he said, ‘Hang on, there’s something heavy in the bottom’.

‘No there’s not’, I said. ‘I emptied it.’

‘I’m telling you, there is!’, he insisted, and reached down and pulled out a slab of cheese which he’d just bought. ‘I think there’s a secret pocket at the back here’, he said. ‘And – oh! –

HERE’S YOUR OTHER GLOVE!’

Shameless plug

For those of you not 'in the loop', here's an answer to your Christmas present worries, an introduction to a new and exciting musical world, or a blatant bit of self-promotion, according to your tastes.

The wonderful and lovely Rudsambee, the choir/family we left behind in Edinburgh but who will never, ever leave us, have just produced their latest CD - see here.

It's our (see, I still think of it as 'our', even though I haven't sung with them myself for over a year) first recording since the inspiringly talented and generally adorable Ollie took over as director two years ago, and demonstrates the new heights of musical brilliance and exciting new repertoire into which the choir have ventured.

As a disclaimer, I should add that I haven't actually heard it yet, but Peter is singing on it, so it must be fantastic!

Here endeth the commercial break. Ooh, except to say that if you are shopping online this Christmas and feel like supporting the choir (which is a registered charity), you can go to www.buy.at/rudsambee and from there a small percentage of any purchases you make from the online retailers listed (Amazon and M&S are among them, but there are several others which I can't remember) will be donated to Rudsambee.

Think I've covered everything (John, Chris?)

Thank you.

Long lost friends

The boxes are here!! All 19 of them arrived first thing yesterday morning. Here's the living proof.




These babies were last seen departing our home in Edinburgh at about 11pm on 22nd August, after we had helped a poor lad from Beijing load them into his almost-too-small van in torrential rain. ('Harbin?' he said. 'Why do you want to go there?') Here's what we looked like afterwards.

This was after they had sat all that day in the stairwell of our flat due to a cock-up which meant the van which was supposed to pick them up earlier in the day had failed to materialise. So they sent the lad up from Manchester to collect them, and then drive back to Manchester with them the same night. I think the London-based freight company thought Manchester and Edinburgh were quite close together - both being north of Watford, of course.

This in turn was after we had had to enlist the help of two friends to carry them down from our second floor flat, as the company (who were otherwise brilliant) didn't offer this service. And after our flat had looked like a bomb site for two months while we packed everything, with boxes in various states of construction, and the items to go into them, littering every surface and at one point getting wet when water poured through from the upstairs neighbours' window in another torrential rainstorm (Edinburgh gets a lot of those in August).

And while simultaneously we were trying to do up our bathroom, which we'd left far too late and failed to anticipate things going wrong like all the tiles falling off the wall when we got the new bath put in.

Or the new bath having a hole in and having to get another new bath. Or, at the same time, the sewage pipe which drained our only toilet becoming blocked by a tree root that was growing out of it two floors up, and not being able to get a scaffolder to come and fix it, and our insurance company refusing to pay for it because it was 'above ground', and having to argue with all the neighbours about paying their share of it, so that for two months our toilet was prone to block up completely and without warning so that I had to go into town to do a poo in Debenhams on two occasions.

And this was after I had spent a month tearing my hair out trying to get ANYONE to give me a quote for transporting our stuff to China - which Peter's company said we had to get three quotes for before they would pay for it - rather than just say hurriedly, "Oh, er, I'll call you back" - and then never do so - when I mentioned Harbin and they looked on a map and saw where it was. Praise be for the marvellous Sherzod ("Don't worry!") who took the whole thing in his stride to such an extent that when his firm said they could do the job - and gave us the lowest quote into the bargain - I even said to him, "No offence, but do you actually know where Harbin is?"

So you can understand why we are BLOODY GLAD to see these boxes. Even if we did have to pay a horrendous customs charge because apparently we had some dodgy items which they shouldn't really have let through. Don't know what - maybe the mandolin and the accordion, or most probably the Tampax; I reckon they're banned in China (see here). And even if the Chinese delivery guys did dump the boxes outside the front door at 8.30am and drive away, so that we, Kevin and a passing cyclist hired on the spot for the purpose (I kid you not) had to carry them UP the stairs again to get them into the lift to our flat.

Of course, most of what's in them is utter crap which we don't need. And the things we really do need (a serrated knife, teatowels) we didn't think to send out, not realising you can't get them here.

But at least, here, the saga comes to a close.

Until we need to send the damn things - plus everything we've bought since coming to China - home again in two years' time.

But I'll worry about that later.

The Master Plan

So, Mr Bond, we meet at last.

The time has come for me to reveal (to those of you who didn’t hear about this before we left Edinburgh) our Grand Project for Harbin, to which I alluded in my previous post.

Viz: to bring ceilidh dancing, and Scottish/Celtic traditional music in general, to China, and turn Harbin into the Ceilidh Capital of the East, with the ultimate aim of having a Celtic music festival along the lines of a mini Celtic Connections, here. Anyone who doesn’t know what a ceilidh is, please click here. Please note it is NOT the same as Scottish Country Dancing.

We call this Operation Ceilidh Culture (name shamelessly pinched from Edinburgh’s own small annual traditional music event – sorry guys. It’s a only working title!)

Why? Because it sounds crazy enough for us to try it; because Peter never got a chance to start his ceilidh band before we left Scotland; and because God knows the Chinese desperately need an injection of some kind of quality music, if the trash that we hear on our built-in shower radio (yes, that’s right) or piped blaringly loudly out into the street outside shopping centres is anything to go by. Frankly, it’s Eurovision-style pop of the cheesiest kind, and much though you know I love Eurovision, they really need to be educated on the musical front. Plus Peter has a theory that the pentatonic scale is the same as the range of chords used in most Irish tunes (or something) so therefore the Chinese ear is predisposed to like that kind of music.

And hey, if it fails there’s always my backup plan, which is – on the strength of the above – to bring Eurovision to China instead. It’s broadcast in Vietnam and Korea, apparently, so why not here? I’m thinking of writing to Sir Terry, now that he’s become disillusioned with European political voting in ‘our’ contest, and suggesting he expand his horizons. Why not an Asiavision Song Contest? Bad music and nationalism combined – it sounds right up China’s street!

But I digress. How do we intend to bring our project to fruition? Well, it pans out like this.

Peter’s original plan was to find some fellow musicians and start a ceilidh band. All he really needs is a keyboard player, someone with a rhythm machine of some sort (both of whom could be Chinese), and either a guitarist – in which case Peter could play the melody line on the flute – or, preferably, a fiddler (who would probably have to be an expat) so that Peter can play guitar or mandolin instead. I could probably even manage to learn a few simple tunes on the accordion.

But to have a ceilidh we needed to find some willing guinea-pigs for the dancing. We were stuck as to how to go about this, until we met Magi. As I mentioned, he is something big at one of the universities, and as a teacher of English he is very keen for his students to learn about British culture as well as the language. It also transpires that he is a bit of a Scotophile, has visited Scotland (even staying in the same hostel on Skye where we went on our choir tour in 2006), and is interested in Scottish music. When Peter mentioned his ceilidh band plan to him, Magi became very excited.

‘You provide the music’, he said, ‘and I will provide six thousand students!’

Sorted. The Chinese seem to love doing strenuous organised activities in large groups, particularly if they can be shouted at while doing it - and none more so than young people still in the education system who have known nothing else all their lives – so ceilidh dancing should suit them down to the ground. We just tell them everyone in Britain does this every week. They don’t need to know it’s a purely minority interest confined to Scottish people, and mainly those over 40. And once the blokes realise that they not only get to touch girls but that the girls can ask them to dance, we should be on to a winner. Six thousand of them might be a bit much, but hey, why aim low? Now THAT's a big Strip the Willow.

So, to recap.

One: get Magi to organise his students to come to a ceilidh at the university. How he pitches this is entirely up to him. If he wants to give them course credits for it, that’s fine by us. We’ll need a Chinese person with a loud voice, a good memory and a sense of rhythm to learn the steps and then call them in Chinese. Maybe they could do simultaneous translation as someone (who by a process of elimination I’ve just realised would probably have to be me – argh – I only know two dances!) calls in English. As we won’t have a band ready in time, we use Scottish CDs, of which we have many. Chinese students dance the night away enthusiastically. THEY WILL LOVE IT.

Two: meanwhile, we find out where the expats hang out, and advertise both there and at the university for musicians to join a band to play Scottish and Irish music. If a couple of Chinese musicians come along and learn the tunes, so much the better. THEY WILL LOVE IT.

Three: building on the success of the inaugural ceilidh, we make these a regular event at the uni. Ok so maybe ALL 6000 students don’t have to come EVERY time. But those who do will LOVE IT. Once the band is formed and has got a repertoire together, we replace the CDs with live music, and then everyone will LOVE IT EVEN MORE.

Four: word gradually spreads about this new dance sensation, leading to ceilidhs (small ones at first) being held in the city for people other than students. We will have laid the groundwork for this by teaching a few friends some ceilidh dances at our parties (see previous post) whenever we have the chance. Soon Scottish music and ceilidh dancing become a craze in Harbin. This curious new development attracts national attention. Harbin becomes known as ‘The Scottish City’. We are featured on CCTV News. People flock from all over China to sample the exciting new cultural experience. THEY ALL LOVE IT.

Five: since everybody in Harbin now LOVES Scottish music so much, we decide it’s time some real Celtic musicians came over to do a concert. We find out how one goes about raising money for such an event in China, we get the money (ok so this part of the plan isn’t quite thought through yet!), and approach some of the stars of the traditional music scene to come over. We reckon Aly and Phil may be slightly out of our league at this stage (though boys, if you’re reading this, we’re huge fans, and any time you feel like waiving your fee in return for the trip of a lifetime, the invitation’s there!), but maybe some of the younger generation might be up for it. If we could get Jenna Reid, that would be fab. Or one of the big ceilidh bands like Shooglenifty. Although more of them, so more expenses.

Six: back home in Scotland, Aly Bain turns on the news one day and sees a piece about two Brits who have brought Scottish music to the northernmost reaches of China. He phones Jenna (or whoever), who says, ‘Oh aye, I went to play there. It was great. Those guys in Harbin LOVE Scottish music. You should see them ceilidh!’ Aly gets our number and calls us. When we’ve finished saying ‘We are not worthy’, we discuss our plans for a major Celtic music festival in Harbin – perhaps every two years. No need to be over-ambitious.

‘The trouble is, Mr Bain,’ we say, ‘it’ll be very expensive and we don’t know how we can raise the cash’.

‘Leave it with me, pal’, says Aly. [Not sure if Shetlanders say ‘pal’, but you get the picture.]

Seven: in 2011, the first ‘Celtic Connections East’ - no, let's call it 'Celtic Connections China'; better logo potential - festival is held in Harbin. We have had to use our contacts to get Harbin airport to start running international flights to places other than Vladivostock just for the occasion. Everybody LOVES IT, it is a resounding success, and the 2013 one is bigger than ever. Harbin is the Ceilidh Capital of the East. We become slightly rich, and have changed the face of modern China forever.

…..

WHAT?????

It could happen.

G'day folks

I’ve finally worked it out. My so-called broadband-which-isn’t-really-it’s-dial-up internet connection – if such a lumbering, clunking thing over which it is impossible to upload even the shortest video clip in less than an hour really merits the name ‘connection’ – thinks I’m in Australia. Or if not in the country itself, then its environs. (Does Australia have environs?)

This explains why
a) I can see all the websites (including this one) which I’m not supposed to be able to see from China, and yet my VPN which I purchased for this express purpose before leaving the UK doesn’t work, implying there’s a proxy server somewhere;
b) when I went to renew my anti-virus software the other day, the price came up in dollars. I assumed it meant US dollars and went to the drop-down box where it said ‘Change currency’ – and the two options it gave me were Australian dollars or New Zealand dollars. Big choice there, then.
c) when I try to find out what’s happening in Neighbours, I can’t get off the Australian version of the site no matter how hard I try, so all the storylines are three months ahead – though annoyingly it won’t let me actually watch the videos. But I DO know that Libby…. oh no, I couldn’t possibly tell.

So I say good on ya, cobber, to my Chinese landlords, who must have had the same devious idea as me and set up something to bypass the blockade. I’m SLIGHTLY annoyed at having forked out £20 for a VPN which is effectively redundant. I suppose I can use it in hotels, but usually their internet connections are unrestricted anyway. Still, my fault for being hyper-efficient and buying it in advance rather than waiting till we got here to see if we actually needed it.

By the way, thanks to all for your emails and comments on this blog. I really do appreciate them and apologise for not responding. It’s just that what with having to connect the modem and dial up every time as if it was – God – 1998 or something! [snorts in contempt], and needing to communicate with Peter who’s been in the UK all week, I’ve just not really got round to it. But I’m thrilled you’re all reading, and I never intended this to be one-way communication so I promise I’ll make a better effort. Claire, I’m glad I made you laugh but I was deadly serious about the face creams! Congrats to Rachael & Jake. Arno, actually I miss Polwarth – a bit! Lucy, are you out there?

Just going to crack open a can of Foster’s and put another shrimp on the barby.

One Week in China

Welcome, folks, to the inaugural posting on my China blog. Wonderful wonderful technology allows me to bring this to you with -hopefully - no interference from government internet censors (the ‘Great Firewall of China’ of which you may have heard tell). I hope over the next couple of years to keep you all updated regularly with developments and observations on this truly bizarre new life of ours. Please feel free to pass on the link to anyone I’ve missed but who you think might be interested (within reason!).

Peter came out a week before me as you know, and had a chance to go to our home-town-to-be, Harbin, to look at a couple of flats, on which more below. His initial stay there was remarkable mostly for the novel definition of ‘room service’ embraced by a certain French hotel chain which shall remain anonymous. On his first afternoon he was just trying to take a nap when the phone rang in his room. A woman was whispering something in Chinese. For some reason he got the impression that it was the wifie who had cleaned his room that morning who was worried he might be unhappy about something. She kept saying ‘Rooma rooma {incomprehensible Chinese word} one, two – yes, no?’ After several minutes of What? and Sorry? and repeating ‘Don’t understand’ in Chinese, he hung up. A couple of minutes later the phone rang again and after going through the same non-conversation a second time, he finally said ‘Room hao’ (good) to express that he was quite happy with it, thank you very much.

The next thing he knew, the room doorbell went and there was a small woman outside with large sunglasses on. She marched in, deposited a carrier bag on the floor, turned round and repeated the ‘Rooma {Chinese} one two yes? mantra but this time she made a massage type action with her fingers. He said ‘Ah - no thanks’, shook his head and went back towards the door - but she wasn’t taking that for an answer. Pointing at his willy she said the Chinese word again. He said ‘NO!’ but as he headed for the door she made a lunge for his privates. He opened the door, grabbed her hand an inch from his bits and pushed her out. She skipped back for her carrier bag and beat it immediately. When he reported this encounter to his interpreter the next day, the lad nearly wet himself laughing. ‘She wasn’t saying “rooma” she was saying “woman”’, he said. ‘She wanted to know if you wanted one woman or two, and when you said ‘room good’ that was an invitation to go ahead!’ Peter asked him if this was common and he said ‘Oh yes – all the hotels have an arrangement with locals to make sure every need is satisfied. Many people require this service’!! What would Basil Fawlty have made of it all, I wonder?

Having escaped with his virtue intact, it was back to Shanghai to meet me off the plane and begin the tiresome task of applying for our residency permits etc. The first requirement for this was to undergo the ‘Aliens Exit-Entry’ medical (something painful involving Sigourney Weaver surely?). This is essentially a ridiculous production line designed to ‘process’ as many ‘aliens’ as they can in the shortest possible time. They get through probably 40-50 patients an hour, chiefly by having a clutch of nurses running up and down the corridor barking orders at you: ‘Go in there! Take off shoes! Lie on bed! Breathe! Hold breath! Again! Finish! Now wait outside room 206! Next!’ It was probably just as well I was in a jet-lagged haze, having been forced to endure this less than 24 hours after landing. Perhaps Peter’s Harbin hotel friend intended to conduct her business in a similar fashion? Anyway I can only assume it’s been designed purely as a money-spinner, as the relevance of most of the tests escapes me. A blood test for AIDS and TB I can understand but honestly, an eye test? Peering in the ears? Poking my stomach for 20 seconds, a quick ECG and an ultrasound of my liver and kidneys? How exactly do these determine whether I should be allowed to stay in China or not?

Peter had already had his medical before I arrived and his results happily came back as ‘Normal’ - “Even my liver!” he announced with some surprise. (No one can tell us what happens if your results are not Normal. They certainly don’t treat you, and may indeed ship you home, possibly dumping you overboard into Japanese waters as they go.) Unfortunately though, even the Normal are subject to the whims of the Chinese authorities who have decided, it now transpires, to change the rules so that Peter will have to fly to Hong Kong or possibly even back to the UK to get his visa sorted. By spectacularly bad timing our arrival has coincided with ongoing Olympics-induced visa paranoia, so we remain somewhat in limbo at the moment.

Apart from that our stay in Shanghai was unremarkable, owing to the fact that I’m still waking up at 4.30am every night so I’m permanently too tired to go out unless I have to. I have no idea why 4.30am, as that’s 9.30pm UK time, but that’s jetlag for you. My Dad never believed jetlag existed (then again, he never believed stereo existed either) and I so wish he was around for me to set him straight.

Anyway, due to this it was somewhat reluctantly that I flew up to Harbin with Peter on Wednesday so that I could see our new flat. A couple of pictures above. It’s the most extraordinary place I’ve ever seen, with décor like something out of a 1960s sci-fi film and a whole host of gadgets, including an all-singing all-dancing shower complete with lights, massage jets and sound system, of which the owner guy was immensely proud. It’s got 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a central air-con unit and under-floor heating throughout. The contract should hopefully be signed today, and with any luck it’ll be available for us to move our stuff into within a few days – if not ourselves, as we have to go back to Shanghai next week to sort things out, so it’s a couple more weeks in hotels unfortunately.

Our goods which we sent out by air freight have arrived and look very strange and surreal sitting in the corner of Peter’s office. The rest of the stuff (19 boxes thereof!) will take about 3 months by sea, so we took the precaution of flying out our winter clothes, as it’ll be below zero in Harbin by mid-November. It’s still in the mid-high 20s here now (not counting this afternoon’s sudden torrential storm), but public buildings have had their air-con switched off as of 1st Sept as it is now officially ‘cold’, having been up into the high 30s in July & August. Then in winter it’s minus 15 by day, minus 30 by night. Actual proper seasons; that’ll take some getting used to.

Peter’s job is going well and they are busy building the team for the new business. All are apparently very impressed with his couple of sentences of Chinese. Getting lost walking back to the hotel and a trip to the supermarket on my own have almost been enough to shock me out of my denial with regard to learning the language. If I can at least master ‘I don’t speak Chinese’ it’ll be an advantage!

Before you go, scroll back to the top to check out a couple of the spectacular photos which Peter managed to take from the plane over, we think, Mongolia at dawn.

Keep us posted on all the news from home.

Love
M&P