Or visit out-of-the-way places, enthuse about them for a bit, then start to find them difficult and complain that they’re not, ya know, London or Bangkok.

What can I say? I’m British. I whinge.

And, furthermore, I’m doing winter in northern China.

It was always going to be difficult, particularly given whinging about the weather is actually in my DNA.

But I do think it’s illustrative of more than my own cretinosity that I managed to spend a whole two days in Yabuli without establishing that there were two substantial ski resorts in town.

For that matter, I managed to spend an entire five days in Yabuli without getting closer to the heart of the matter than that there are two large ones, and at least three smaller ones, at least one of which is reliably in operation, and possibly another mid-sized one 15-20k out of town.

What can I say? I asked a lot of people, in the hotels and in the ski resorts, but I didn’t have my own wheels, my Chinese is rubbish and, well, you try directing a Chinese driver to take you a ski resort that one of the staff at Club Med vaguely thinks might exist somewhere “that way”.

So those white patches on our map with no runs or lifts marked on them are actually an open ski resort, with working lifts? While the appealing network of polychrome ski runs and lifts on the middle of the map are actually shut?

“How many resorts are there in Yabuli?” I ask Li, who is alternating between trying to fix a time for more lessons tomorrow, ideally one each, and angling for a tip.

I have established, for at least the fourth time, that all but three lifts at Yabuli GaoShan are closed, apparently indefinitely, along with at least 70% of the appealingly brightly shaded network of runs on the ski map. “Is it just JingHao and GaoShan?”

This is what our travel agent has told us (and, no, you don’t need a travel agent to ski Yabuli, but you do need to reserve your rooms in advance). But — call me picky — I really, really would like to find something that isn’t a baby slope, a black run, a slalom or “Dangerous! Lots of rocks!”

“No,” Li says, cutting short his explanation of how the ski school takes 70 kuai of the 120 kuai per hour fee, leaving him only 50 kuai per hour, which is very probably true but frankly not my problem. “There is SanGuo.”

“THAT?” I say.

“Yes,” Li says.

So those white patches on our map with no runs or lifts marked on them are actually an open ski resort, with working lifts? While the appealing network of polychrome ski runs and lifts on the middle of the map are actually shut?

DAFUQ?

That seems to match the first two of the Chinese characters on the map, which I’m guessing mean Third Peak (三锅盛): we’re currently on 大锅盛 （Big Peak, or Main Peak, though everyone seems to call it 高山, GaoShan, or High Mountain), and the runs on 二锅盛 （Second Peak) are closed.

Our Lonely Planet does not mention any resort in Yabuli other than, well, Yabuli, which has, it says, been refurbished. The domain name yabuliski.com routes through to something called Yabuli Sun Mountain.

I have therefore assumed that Yabuli Ski Resort, Yabuli Sun Mountain and Yabuli GaoShan (High Mountain) are, well, one and the same, even though Sun Mountain apparently has something to do with Club Med, and this doesn’t have a Club Med.

Yabuli is not what you’d call a large town, and the — admittedly vintage — map on our hotel wall only includes the resort that we are currently in.

“There are ski runs there?! And it’s open?!” I say. “Is that Sun Mountain?”

“No,” Li says. “It’s SanGuo.”

That matches the first two of the Chinese characters on the map, which I’m guessing mean Third Peak (三锅盛): we’re currently on 大锅盛 （Big Peak, or Main Peak, though everyone seems to call it 高山, GaoShan, or High Mountain), and the runs on 二锅盛 （Second Peak) are closed.

“So THIS is Sun Mountain?” I say.

“This is GaoShan,” Li says irritably, before recovering and endeavouring to sell me some lessons at SanGuo.

It is perfectly possible to have one lake divided into two separate skating grounds, both government-run and administered by soldiers, with separate admission tickets and skate hire for the two, despite the fact they are actually linked by a gate, and, ya know, on the same lake, with effectively identical facilities.

Now, I learned while ice-skating in Beijing that it is perfectly possible to have one lake divided into two separate skating grounds, both government-run and administered by soldiers, with separate admission tickets and skate hire for the two, despite the fact they are actually linked by a gate, and, ya know, on the same lake, with effectively identical facilities.

That’s just China. Or, more precisely, “socialism in the Chinese manner”. You get used to it after a while.

And, of course, workers at Chinese ski resorts aren’t ski bums doing a season. They’re workers, doing their job, one of many factors which makes the rental of ski gear such a merry bagatelle.

And, of course, the Chinese names of places don’t match their English names. But still…

I wander over to a chap who looks like he’s been working here since it opened and enquire in execrable Chinese accompanied with a liberal sprinkling of pointing, “This one! SanGuo? Open not open? Chair-vehicles open not open?”

“All open!” Ooh!

We may not be spending the next three days inching painfully down icy slaloms after all!

And it’s snowing, too! Things are looking up!

The post Skiing China 3: Only in China… appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

“What about that one?” I say.

“Dangerous! Lots of rocks!”

Well, I think stoically, that’s one way to sort my turns out.

On the equipment side, it’s been an exciting morning. There’s something about the Chinese language that makes having a pop at carving skis seem an easier option than explaining to a non-skiing Chinese rental guy that, yes, you are going higher up the mountain, but no, you don’t need carving skis because you can’t ski well enough to use them.

Safely back on yet another pair of moron skis, I am, however, feeling the absence of a helmet.

Not quite enough to go and drop £70 on one, particularly given they only come in Elephant Man size, but ever since Zac’s dad inquired what Zac would do “if it all went a bit Natasha Richardson” after I took a 4WD window out with my head in Egypt, I’m less cavalier than I was about matters neural.

The black run is, in fact, not that steep, by which I mean that, standing at the top of it, I can see quite a lot of it below me.

Right! I think! I CAN do this! I can TOTALLY do this.

And I can do this with parallel turns, rather than snowplough turns like some kind of imbecile. I’ve skied steeper things than this…

“Well, maybe a few falls,” says Li, dubiously, pulverising my confidence like a washing machine disassembling a snotty tissue, and distributing it in small flecks across the mountain. “Hope not too many!”

“Go slow,” says Li. “Try not to fall. Control your speed.”

What does the man think I am? Lindsey Vonn? I’m a lady intermediate skier with no helmet, an (according to my son) *middle-aged* lady intermediate skier at that, endeavouring to sort out my parallel turns. On a sodding black run, which for all I know is solid ice on the bits I can’t see, but which is, because we are skiing China, the only alternative to a beginner’s slope.

And of course I can control my speed! I know how to go across a slope, Jesus.

“Yes,” I say, biting back more pungent retorts. “I don’t want to fall.”

“Well, maybe a few falls,” says Li, dubiously, pulverising my confidence like a washing machine disassembling a snotty tissue, and distributing it in small flecks across the mountain. “Hope not too many!”

GREAT.

Great, great, great.

I let a couple of Chinese athletes zoom past, at roughly the pace of Christopher Reeve circling the globe in Superman, before gingerly embarking on a traverse so painstakingly horizontal that I’m frankly embarrassed to be on this run at all.

This, I begin to realise, might be what the interwebz mean when they say that most Chinese ski resorts aren’t very good for intermediates.

“Ahahahahahaha!” I gamely fake-laugh, from flat on my arse, manoeuvring my legs to reassemble self and skis, which, perhaps because of my molluscan pace and perhaps because of the cruddy bindings, remain firmly and fracture-inducingly attached to my boots.

I descend in a series of embarrassingly horizontal and inelegant turns, my back foot either jumping into turns or flapping aimlessly, rather in the manner of the arm in Body Parts, except instead of being possessed by a serial killer it’s possessed by the Aflac dancing duck.

“Is my back foot alright?” I yell to Li, who is some way ahead of me.

It doesn’t feel alright.

Li says it’s fine. Quite how he would know given he doesn’t appear to be looking at me, I don’t know.

No, it doesn’t feel right. I know what it feels like when I’m turning correctly and…

….. aaarrrrggghhhh ICE….

….the graunch and rattle of one panicking intermediate skier trying and failing to turn on ice on a black run…

… and I’m down…

“Ahahahahahaha!” I gamely fake-laugh, from flat on my back, manoeuvring my legs to reassemble self and skis, which, perhaps because of my molluscan pace and perhaps because of the cruddy bindings, remain firmly and fracture-inducingly attached to my boots, though at least I didn’t hit my head, eh?

The right-hand side of the run is heavily iced. The left is set up for a slalom. Yes, a slalom. Yabuli GaoShan is, first and foremost, a training centre for Chinese ski teams.

It takes us a short geological era to reach the blue run, though, mercifully, there are few witnesses to my abysmally wide and painfully shallow zigzag down what is, actually, not a particularly challenging black run. Well, apart from the ice, that is.

The right-hand side of the blue run is heavily iced. The left is set up for a slalom.

Yes, a slalom.

Yabuli GaoShan is, first and foremost, a training centre for Chinese ski teams.

“Stay left,” says Li, from some way below me. “Much ice!”

Well, I think gamely. For, gentle reader, I am nothing if not game.

A slalom is DEFINITELY one way to sort my turns out. The snow looks good, soft and choppy, which makes not only for fun skiing but a nice soft landing when if I fall.

And if I do two wide traverses for each set of poles, where a good skier would do one narrow turn, that will keep my speed to the required geriatric crawl.

What was that thing, again, I think? The exercise? Heel-toe, heel-toe? I can remember the words of the exercise, but my heels and toes can’t remember the movements.

I do another couple of turns without apparent effort, through this lovely soft easy-going snow, I should even remember what to do with my poles in a second…. Yeah! This is really coming together!

All of a sudden, insanely, heel-toe, heel-toe starts to work, and the spirit of the Aflac dancing duck departs my back foot with a ghostly howl quack. I’m traversing at a slightly less pathetic angle, and I’m turning, well, I’m turning effortlessly!

In fact, I realise, as I do another couple of turns without apparent effort, through this lovely soft easy-going snow, I should even remember what to do with my poles in a second….

Yeah! This is really coming together!

I turn in a patch of snow that looks friendly to said activity, come out and…

Oh… That blue thing…

Oh sh…

OUCH!

I veer so ineptly that I actually straddle the slalom pole. I register two things, firstly that one of my skis has come off, which is good, and secondly that I’ve at least been going fast enough for straddling a slalom pole to hurt.

“Ahahahahahahaha!” I fake laugh, disentangling myself from the slalom pole, retrieving and donning my ski. “I’m FINE. Really! I’m FINE! Ahahahahaha!”

Not that Li appears in the slightest bit concerned with my welfare.

I go really fast on the baby run at the end, at least before the icy stretch, just to show I can.

Ahead of me, I spot my spawn, doing precisely the same thing on the ice, a little red-topped dot whizzing off into the middle distance.

Picture credit: Tharrin.co.nz.

The post Skiing China 2: In Which I Attempt a Slalom appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

Take the ski train. This leaves Harbin every morning during the season, trundles three hours north to Yabuli Nan station, arrives at 10.45, then trundles back at teatime. There are no morning departures.

Why?

Well, the timing is perfect for the typical Chinese ski tripper. There’s time to get to the slopes, hire your gear, get a whole half-day – at most resorts, you can buy 2-hourly, 4-hourly or “all-day” slots – grab lunch, and then head back.

A half-day, for many Chinese, is an absolute tonne of skiing.

In fact, most of our companions on the train don’t look like they’re skiing at all. No ski pants. No gear. I guess they’ll hire it all there…

Or perhaps just take a lift to the top of the mountain to look at the view?

We trundle through frozen Manchurian wastes, endless stretches of white tundra studded with birch and striped by frozen rivers, ramshackle peasant houses forlorn amid this vast expanse.

And, as we trundle through frozen Manchurian wastes, endless stretches of white tundra studded with birch and striped by frozen rivers, ramshackle peasant houses forlorn amid this vast expanse, I really begin to wonder what we’re letting ourselves in for.

This HAS to be good, I think.

Skiing China was one of our main reasons for being in Harbin, so Yabuli has to be good.

Eventually, the mountains hove into view. And…

Well, they’re odd mountains. Not jagged, angular, imposing high mountains. More a set of rounded projections arising from the plains, stubbled with stark, leafless birch in lieu of the dark pines I associate with skiing, a landscape more lunar than earthly.

Yes, OK, maybe Gokyo and Everest – not to mention, for skiing, Chamonix — have left me a little spoilt when it comes to mountains. Maybe I’m being bratty. But aesthetically, Yabuli isn’t quite cutting it.

It’s the birches! In particular, the sapling cover. The mountains look like they really, really need to shave their legs.

It’s crammed with Chinese novices in matching luminous ski wear clinging onto their coaches’ ski poles as they inch down in a terrified snowplough, their coaches skiing backwards behind them.

Out we toddle, from the lemon yellow grandeur of Yabuli Nan station, into the snow – someone could, and probably already did, write a thesis on the propaganda function of station architecture in China, because this thing, despite hosting only the daily ski train, stands approximately four storeys high.

It’s not too cold, a balmy -15 or thereabouts, maybe even -10, so we find our assigned driver and make our way to our hotel.

We pass a standalone nursery slope, a low incline with a T-bar lift stretching all of 300 metres, the size of the slope at the Harbin Ice Sculpture Festival or one of the suburban ski slopes in town. It’s crammed with Chinese novices in matching luminous ski wear clinging onto their coaches’ ski poles as they inch down in a terrified snowplough, their coaches skiing backwards behind them.

That must be Jinghao, I think, the cheaper ski slope that our travel agent warned us against.

Now, Chinese tour groups in matching baseball caps, or matching T-shirts, complete with guide with a flag and often a whistle too, are part of the furniture at places like the Forbidden City, as domestic tourists begin to enjoy and explore their vast country.

But an entire coachload in matching orange ski gear, all trying to learn to ski at exactly the same time on their 200 kuai day trip from Harbin? That’s special.

We pass a set of proper, Eddie-the-Eagle ski jumps for athlete training, a handful of hotels, all of them with random names like Broadcast or Electricity, and not so much as a whisper of apres-ski, or even a hint of a building that is anything other than a hotel.

The staff look at us blankly, clearly utterly bewildered as to what this odd pairing – not only foreigners, but a female foreigner with an ambiguously-gendered child and no husband! — is doing in their hotel.

I, you see, have been looking forward to apres-ski. I’ve even brought my kneeboots.

I’ve also been looking forward to some kids of Zac’s age for him to hang out with.

On arrival at our residence, the Communications Village Hotel, it appears that apres-ski, and, for that matter, any form of socialising that doesn’t involve a group leader with a whistle, might be pushing it somewhat.

It’s a substantial, Stalinist, mid-range affair, lightened by bright lanterns and fairylights, with a vast and echoing foyer that makes my heart sink.

Like most other hotels in town, I’ll learn, it was built by a state-owned company (China Unicom) in the run-up to Yabuli’s moment of glory, a defining point in Chinese ski history, when it hosted the Asian Winter Games last century.

“Oh god,” I say to Zac. “This is like The Shining.”

The staff look at us blankly, clearly utterly bewildered as to what this odd pairing – not only foreigners, but a female foreigner with an ambiguously-gendered child and no husband! — is doing in their hotel.

They are also disconcertingly confused as to why on earth we are staying four whole nights. Still, they do have our reservation, which is handy, as their rack rate is an eyebleeding 500 kuai per night and we’re paying 40% of that.

I manage to communicate that I’d like a ski map. They don’t have one, but there is one out in the lobby.

“Well,” I say to Zac. “THIS looks good.”

Although I can’t help noticing, as I step out into the cold and look down the road, that at least half of the lifts don’t seem to be running. Also that a black run from the top appears to be solid, black-scarred ice. Visions of toasty open fires and mulled drinks of various sorts now appear overly optimistic.

Hmmm….

The menu occupies 18 densely packed pages of Chinese script. Depressingly, despite the fact that Zac is soon to start bloody school in China, we can’t read it.

Annoyingly, since we were hoping to meet people, we’re escorted not just to our very own table but to our very own substantial dining room to eat lunch, at a Gulliver-scaled giant scarlet table with an enormous lazy Susan, tailored for large groups of Chinese eating banquet style.

The menu occupies 18 densely packed pages of Chinese script. Depressingly, despite the fact that Zac is soon to start bloody school in China, we can’t read it.

We know our meat characters, and our carb characters, a few cooking method characters and some fruit and vegetable characters, but to string these together into the names of actual dishes on a menu that’s designed for Chinese people?

Nope.

I can’t emphasise enough how very kind the Chinese are to people who struggle with their language. I point at something that contains the characters for mutton, and ask the girl to read it to me, which she does.

Sadly, I remain none the wiser.

Feeling EXTREMELY foreign, we resolve the issue by ordering jiaozi for the boy and mapo doufu for me.

I summon our driver to take us to GaoShan in 10 minutes. Every single second of this conversation will remain seared in my memory as the first time I have EVER managed a Chinese phone conversation without pausing, having to repeat myself or failing to understand the other side. And he hasn’t even taken the pace off! GO ME!

According to our travel agent, there are two sets of slopes in town: JingHao and GaoShan, and GaoShan is the best. Given GaoShan translates as “High Mountain” and the slopes that the internet is fondest of appear to be “Sun Mountain” in English, I am figuring GaoShan must be Sun Mountain. (If you’re interested in skiing Yabuli, all is explained here.)

Behind a plywood partition marked “National Athlete Coach” lurk sixty-odd “coaches” in skisuits that span the colour gamut from lurid through to vomiting rainbows by way of painfully vivid pastel, awaiting their prey.

Our driver takes us a ridiculously few hundred metres up the road to a cavernous glazed hall with all the charisma of a 1980s British municipal swimming pool, approached through nicotine-yellow insulation curtains and carpeted with the same type of depressing woven plastic mat material. This is GaoShan.

It must have been rather impressive in 1996, but it’s kinda showing its age.

There’s a lady who speaks Chinglish and helps me to establish that they don’t do long lift passes here, so we buy two-day lift passes as our most convenient option, and some ski goggles to keep the temperatures out of our eyes. The cheapest available helmet is an eyewatering £70 and too large for Zac.

I decide it wouldn’t be a bad idea for us to start with a lesson, something we left a little late in Bulgaria, not only so I can iron out the weird thing my back foot does when I turn, and Zac can fix the arse-heavy posture he’s developed over the years, but because the ski gear supplied with one’s lift passes in China is famously, umm, variable and I want someone who can actually fit it.

Behind a plywood partition marked “National Athlete Coach” lurk sixty-odd “coaches” in skisuits that span the colour gamut from lurid through to vomiting rainbows by way of painfully vivid pastel, awaiting their prey.

“No one coach two person!” says the one who speaks English. “One person one coach! Two person two coach!”

He, and I shall call him Li, would like 240 kuai for a two-hour lesson. Prices are set by the organisation.

A lady capers behind Li. She’s my coach. No, I don’t want a coach. Particularly not a non-English speaking one.

I have never studied Spanish or Italian, nor spent much time in Spanish-speaking countries, or Italy. I have studied Chinese. I would understand a ski lesson in Spanish or Italian. I would not understand one in Chinese.

I grit my teeth and shell out yet more Chairman Maos, hoping to god there’s a cash machine in town.

“Not problem!” says Li, bending Zac’s ankle to such an alarming angle as he forces it into the broken boot that I begin to suspect he wasn’t just a provincial-level skier but actually a Chinese gym coach in a previous life.

Off we head to the gear counter. They have skis and boots in our sizes! Excellent.

Oh. My boots are missing a buckle. Not good. I hand them back. One of Zac’s boots has a broken buckle that won’t open.

“Not problem!” says Li, bending Zac’s ankle to such an alarming angle as he forces it into the broken boot that I begin to suspect he wasn’t just a provincial-level skier but actually a Chinese gym coach in a previous life.

“It IS a problem,” says Zac.

One of my skis is missing the plastic cover on the release. Not a problem, apparently. Still opens with a pole…

But I’d like a matching pair of skis! Not broken!

How very unreasonable and Western of me!

Li gets me a matching pair. Both with apparently functional bindings.

I do not trust this gear one iota.

I am old enough, now, to be more than aware of my fragility. Modern ski boots and ski bindings are designed to protect limbs from inadvertent breakages when you fall. Broken modern boots and bindings, I am fairly sure, do precisely the reverse.

Hey ho! Onwards and upwards.

“This is bizarre,” says Zac to me. “Do they even HAVE intermediates here? Everyone here seems to be either a total noob or professional…” “I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve not seen any other intermediates…”

“I have a problem with my turns, with my back foot,” I say to Li. “And he has a problem that he puts his weight back when he skis, so he skis like this…” (I mime.)

We progress several times down a satisfactorily long but alarmingly-icy-in-patches beginner ski run, populated largely by Chinese tourists being towed down in the snowplough by coaches, with the odd one coming down fast from the top entirely out of control.

This is, for those of you who do not ski, not the way to learn to ski.

Off above us, Chinese athletes in speed-friendly lycra are doing runs from the top that culminate in a fast, steep slalom, while a Chinese cross-country team races off into the woods at a speed that’s more running than the waddle I associate with cross-country.

Li’s coaching appears to be limited to occasionally telling Zac to put his weight forward.

Jesus, I think. I could yell at my child to put his weight forward. For free.

What we need is some kind of fun game or exercise that brings the weight back.

And then the lesson’s over.

Would I like a lesson?

No, actually.

Some people tip!

No, having paid roughly £25 for two hours ski coaching, no, I will not be tipping. That’s three day’s rent in a big city, a week’s in a small one, and Zac’s arse remains in the wrong position.

“This is bizarre,” says Zac to me. “Do they even HAVE intermediates here? Everyone here seems to be either a total noob or professional…”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve not seen any other intermediates…”

We’re skiing! We have the wind in our faces, we’re out in the snow – well, the snow and the ice – and Zac’s got his confidence up enough to race me, so he’s happy.

By the end of the day, though, the two of us are skiing quite happily.

There isn’t much by way of signage, and the only other lift that I can see running takes us to the top of the mountain and two black runs that look unfriendly to intermediates like us even if they’re not entirely glaciated. (Yabuli GaoShan, it would be fair to say, appears to be economising with its snow machines: there’s not a lot of natural snow up here, because it’s arid.)

But we’re skiing! We have the wind in our faces, we’re out in the snow – well, the snow and the ice – and Zac’s got his confidence up enough to race me, so he’s happy.

With no helmet and with boots and bindings that do not inspire confidence, there is no question of who’s going to win this…

And, as the boy whizzes off into the distance, I realise I’m genuinely enjoying this.

I figure I’ll do another lesson with Li tomorrow and perhaps that’ll get me up to the top of the lift and down the blacks. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll sort my turns out.

Only three of the seven lifts on our map are running, and the top two both lead onto black runs which are, except when the ski teams are out practising, effectively deserted.

We have lift passes for two days. We have four nights here.

Yabuli, I figure, is not exactly Chamonix, or even Bansko. I put aside all visions of charming alpine huts, steaming mugs of hot chocolate, fine red wine and, for that matter, hawt ski instructors (yes, I’m at that sort of age, I’m sorry).

It’s only our first night, but we’re damn well going to enjoy Yabuli. If it kills us.

Which, given the state of the equipment, it may well do.

The post Skiing China – Episode 1 – Getting Yabuli Wrong appeared first on EscapeArtistes.