Tag Archives for Family
A Swimming Date in China
The lesser spotted tween, and its larger relative, the greater spotted teen, are elusive creatures in urban China. You might glimpse one between 6 and 7am, neat in their tracksuits on their way to school, then again between 5.30 and 7pm, returning to their homes. On Friday nights, you might catch one in a restaurant [...]
We Find a Chinese School
A bit of English language Googling around bilingual schools in Harbin finds a site for teachers of English as a foreign language, and a job advertised at a bilingual school. I Google around the school’s name in English, plough through a lot of investment sites, and eventually dig up the Chinese language site for the [...]
Skiing China 5: Our Own Private Mountain
And, as if by magic, with a little lot of help from Ski School videos, everything comes together. It’s snowing! It’s snowing, for this arid region, a lot. Lovely, soft fat flakes of ripe March snow, not the diamond-hard glitter of the January snows, spreading their cottonwool softness over the runs, smoothing the edges of [...]
The Chinese are the most inventive nation on earth when it comes to winter fun, but skiing in China is a very new thing. And, as with other Western imports, the Chinese treat it in their own inimitable style. Take the ski train. This leaves Harbin every morning during the season, trundles three hours north [...]
Flat-Hunting in -30, in Chinese
And here we are, in Harbin, which is, if everything goes to plan, our home base for at least three months. We push through the surge and out of the station into the brisk night air. In Bulgaria, this time last year, I remember thinking how very cold -22 was. Harbin is way below that. [...]
Ice Skating in Beijing
When it comes to ice skating, like everything else, the Chinese do it differently. Very differently. And ice skating in Beijing is really something else. Especially on Qianhai Lake. It’s not just the unavoidable presence of the PLA, whether riding ice dodgems, guarding ice bikes, administering the ice slide or guarding the ice skates. The [...]
Along with “What do you do about school?” probably the second most common question I get asked about our lives is “How do you earn enough money to travel?” I hate the term “location independent”, but that’s one way of describing what we are, because I can work and earn from most places in the [...]
Everest Base Camp Trek – FAQ
How Much Does the Everest Base Camp Trek Cost? The Everest Base Camp trek can cost $400-$450 for shoestringers who walk in from Jiri, then straight in and straight out to Everest Base Camp, unguided, over 24 days or so, or as much as 20 times that for people who book luxury treks overseas over [...]
On Thin Ice Everest Base Camp the Lazy Way: Day 18 “Nir,” I open, tentatively. We are on the last-but-one night of our trek, insha’allah, sitting in the cold of the village of Phakding, where we stopped on our first day, so, if I’m going to ask Nir any personal questions, I’m going to ask [...]
Coming Down from Everest Base Camp
Everest Base Camp the Lazy Way Day 16 – Pheriche to Tengboche The next day’s walking is, like Pheriche, almost new to us. It’s perfectly possibly to walk from Pheriche to Namche Bazar in a day, but Zac isn’t keen for an early start, so we wander up a ridge to look at the views. [...]
