Following on from Part 1 and Part 2, here’s Part 3 of my holiday to Harbin. This final installment covers a visit to the Sofia Cathedral as well as the snow sculpture park. Enjoy!

Continuing on from Part 1, this post covers the trip to the Harbin Ice and Snow world. This is the place where the main bulk of the ice sculptures and activities were to be found. We even got to do some skiing, which I hadn’t done in about 10 years! There were some great buildings and sculptures made from ice. Let’s dive right in…

  
For a long time I’ve wanted to head to Harbin, especially in January for their annual winter festival. But, China is big. I live in pretty much the middle of China. Which, like when I lived in the middle of England is great – you’re equidistant from anywhere. Very convenient. But; I’ll say again; China is BIG. From Weinan to Harbin is 1190 miles as the crow (or Airbus) flies. In perspective, that’s from Stafford to Glasgow FIVE times. So, I had a few spare days and decided this year I’d go check it out. B was busy with work and couldn’t get out of it, so I asked Julian if he wanted to go. Plane tickets were a little pricey (around £220 return) but we thought “what the hell?” and went for it. Here are pics from the first few days…

Those who’ve been following this blog for a while know that me covering weddings is a fairly regular thing. When you have a friends group whose age is around 21-25; it’s just what happens. Anyway, These photos are actually from back in September; I almost forgot I had them. One of the Aston CTs who I’ve known for a long time; Maggie – married her high-school sweetheart. Enjoy the pics!

Every year Aston holds an Annual Managers’ Conference (AMC) and, after taking the reigns of manager at Weinan, this year it was my turn to head to the meeting. This year it was hosted in the city of Dalian (大连) in China’s Liaoning province (in the North-East, see this map: click.) There’s not much time to explore the city, as most of the time is spent in meetings, but I managed to grab some snaps of the city…

It’s (or, it was) that time of year again. When we introduce our students to the strange and weird customs of Halloween. As always, the kids really embraced it. I guess it’s a pretty cool holiday – you get to dress up as whatever you want, and then people give you candy. What more could you want? As usual this proved a goldmine for photos, so… enjoy!

  
Following on from Part One, here’s Part Two! Day two included trips to “Fairy mountain” and “Wulong Karst” – The latter being a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The day started with a four-five hour minibus ride out to fairy mountain, on the way we stopped off at a rest stop and I saw this…

Every year for National Day Holiday (October 1st) the folks at Weinan Aston English all go on a trip together. Last year I was in England at the time, but this year I was in China, so I decided to go along. We were heading to ChongQing (重庆) for a few days taking an overnight train, and there was around 20 of us in total. As usual, lots of pics, so go make a brew and come back for a gander…

So, this actually happened when my parents were here, but I didn’t think it fit in very well with the other posts. While they were here I decided to show them the masses of people practising tai chi, kung fu, badminton, etc. in the square. I took along my camera (of course) here are the photos.

If my blog allowed subtitles, this one’s would be “We’re engaged!” The final part of my parents’ stay in China featured me getting down on one knee and asking Beryl to marry me – she said yes! I am looking a bit too evil in this photo though… oops!