Tuesday 20 February 2018

My first snow

I've never lived anywhere where it snows so this was a whole new experience.
February 2018

Snow can be beautiful to look at, but trying and work and live a normal life in it can be difficult. 
The last thing I want to do is break something.  
Kids love it because they get to play in it and school is cancelled.
This was the biggest snow in Yixing in 10 years.

MY COMMUNITY - XIA ZHANG HUA YUAN
(pronounced sha jung hwa yuen)


I woke up to my first view of real snow from my bedroom window.
Below - stepping out the front door to go to work



and looking around



The washing still needs to be done







THE WALK TO WORK


Mmmm - it's getting slippery




The roads have been cleared 






I had to take a photo of this woman's shoes at the bus stop.  
How can she walk in the snow in high heels? 

WORK





The view from the front door of Ba Bai Ban 
(the Mall where work is)
Not a great view at the best of times





Start work at 1pm and work until 9pm. 
 We can't see outside, so you don't quite know what we will be walking out into.

And here it is below, the view outside after work.  Think this was the night of the blizzard.  No taxis or buses came so we ended up walking home.


Below Ba Bai Ban



THE WALK HOME


And when it's snowing, it didn't seem so cold.  It was when the snow started to melt that it was freezing.

Below - kids in my community playing in the snow.





Below, Yixing high speed train station







Beijing - Panjiayan Market




My favourite photo












Lama Temple Beijing

The largest Tibetan Buddhist temple 
outside Tibet














The Forbidden City - the day half of China and I visited


7.30am  19th February 2018
Tour of The Forbidden City and the Great Wall with this group of flight attendants from 
Hawai Airlines who were on a 5 day layover in Beijing.  
It was fun.


It's spring festival so where would you like to go??? 
The Forbidden city of course.


Hall of supreme harmony


The male dragon guarding the Hall of Supreme Harmony.


The Emperor's bedroom had 27 beds 
- so that if anyone came to kill him in the night they would have a bit of trouble finding him.


Roof guardians.  
Procession led by a phoenix, 
followed by mythical beasts and the dragon at the end of the procession.  




For storing water







Let's rub this for good luck

This little dragon would "tell on" any of the concubines if they got up to anything they shouldn't



This tells you how cold it was.  The moat of the Forbidden City was frozen.





The frozen moat around the Forbidden City