22 January, 2004
The day started early. Very early indeed. We had to get up at 5 am to arrive at the airport by 7 am. Of course, no one could sleep the night before, not having packed until the very last minute, so we all slept rather less than we would have liked.
I took some photos as I waited for the
plane to take off. The flight to Beijing from Hong Kong took three and
a half hours, altogether - but then I was told that Dragonair planes
fly slower than the Chinese airlines.
 An airplane taking off. |
A Cathay Pacific cargo plane. I never thought about cargo planes before and was surprised to see a dedicated plane for cargo, but it's obvious that they must exist! |
Hong Kong International Airport from the air. |
Beijing from the air. It is a BIG city! |
Of course, that might have been because I was wearing a lot of clothes...
I had on:
- Knee-length down coat rated for -15°C
- SuperWarm thermal underwear
- ordinary sweatshirt
- ordinary pants
- Morley woolen leggings
In Changchun and Harbin, this grew to include:
- hat
- scarf
- ski gloves
- wool socks (worn over ordinary socks)
- snow pants instead of the ordinary pair
We didn't do much that first day. We did get ourselves some snow-boots, though - not much sense in freezing one's toes off, is there? - on Wangfujiang. It's a big pedestrian street with department stores and shops all over.
I was fascinated with puffing steam like a train engine (much to the contempt of the locals, I am sure). Much MORE steam can be produced when the air is dry and ten degrees colder! I was quite chilly and my hands were stiff - and assumed my camera, working at 4 degrees below its operating range, would feel the cold too. I kept it warm inside my coat most of the time. As I later came to see, -4°C was rather small potatoes, and I was being decidedly overprotective. However! I digress. Photos of Wangfujiang:
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 Chocolate turtles! I've never seen chocolate turtles before - I was rater tempted to buy some. I love turtles. |
 Due to its being the first day of the Lunar New Year, the shopping centres were crowded and festive. |
 The boots we bought. They have a woolly inner lining and VERY thick soles. The theory is, the further your feet are from the snow, the warmer they are - right? |
That night, we saw our train - the China
Orient Express - for the first time. It's not as luxurious as its
European counterpart, of course, and the really bad thing was that
there was no shower or bath, but it was comfortable.
 There was a lion dance performance to welcome us before we got on the train. |
 Our train. |
 Looking out of the train window. They thoughtfully provided us with bottled water, tissues, and a complimentary snack (a different one each time we boarded - I had a tangerine, Vit. C candies, and two different kinds of chips). |
 The chair where I took the last photo from. |
 Looking down from the top bunk. As you can see it was a very small room! The door leads to a tiny compartment with a washbasin that is shared between two rooms. |
 Bunk beds. I put all my stuff in the bottom bunk and slept in the top one (I didn't have to share - what luck!). Easier to put myself up there than a million odds and ends, that's what I say! |
We spent the first night on the train as
it sped towards Shenyang. I fell asleep quite rapidly. This was
probably because I am used to falling asleep on buses, a thing done
almost every day of the school year...joking aside, though, it really
was more comfortable than expected. I thought the mattress would sag in
the middle - but it didn't! I thought the blankets would be inadequate
- but they weren't! I thought the jostling would be annoying - but it
wasn't, it rocked me to sleep!
According to my parents, the heating proved inadequate at about 4 am, when everyone woke up and felt cold, but I was completely oblivious. The thermometer on the wall read 18°C when I got up, though, as opposed to the mid twenties when I went to bed.
According to my parents, the heating proved inadequate at about 4 am, when everyone woke up and felt cold, but I was completely oblivious. The thermometer on the wall read 18°C when I got up, though, as opposed to the mid twenties when I went to bed.
All photos, graphics, layout and text on the following pages are © Denise Chan 2004, unless otherwise stated; please ask before using any of them. My email is denise at idenise dot net.
(Feel free to use any photo you like as wallpaper on your desktop, or your own personal use - just don't take them and use them on a website or other publication without appropriate credit.)
The dragon in the title graphic is a scanned ink drawing of my own, and the font used is 'Chinese Takeaway' by Pizzadude.
The decorative pattern used for the top corners was copied from a window frame.
The tree background is from a photograph I took on the train from Harbin to Beijing.