15 Jan 2011
Greetings all from Shenyang, China,
It's COLD here...really cold! Today, as I write this, it's 12 noon here in the city, and it's still only -4F. Over night it got down to -27C (-17F)...now that's cold, no matter where you are! I know my friends in the US are also dealing with cold and snow especially in SC and GA where it's rare to get so much snow! We haven't had any more snow (I think it's too cold to snow!) so for the moment, it's just the cold! This morning, we went to the Shenyang Ice Festival site. It's just what it sounds like...ice and snow made into many different sculptures. It was cold...even though the sun was shining brightly, there was no risk of melting the sculptures! There is a big light show at night and from the pictures I saw it is spectacular...but you really have to be die-hard to brave the cold at night there...so we opted for daytime!
It was cold out there...so after walking around the village of sculptures, we had to stop by the bicycle vender and get some glazed frozen strawberries on a stick!
No risk of the glaze or the strawberries melting! Notice the mask on the lady selling them...this is common place here in China both summer and winter, but mostly winter. 1 skewer of berries was relatively expensive (5 RMB..or about $0.80), but we certainly didn't try to negotiate with her...anyone who would peddle out in the cold trying to make a buck, we think deserves every penny! Here are the photos of our time at the Shenyang ice festival:
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| Some snow sculptures at the Ice festival |
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| Frozen Sarah & Mr. Sun at the ice festival...thank God for my UGG boots! |
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| Sarah at the ice festival |
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| Rod at the ice festival |
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| Frozen Sarah & Rod at the ice festival |
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| An ice temple |
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| Sarah in front of an ice temple tower |
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| Sarah in an ice maze at the ice festival |
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| Rod & Sarah in front of the ice boat at the ice festival |
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| The year of the rabbit |
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| Rod buying a skewer of glazed strawberries from a vendor at the ice festival |
As some of you may know, we are coming up on the Chinese New year (2 Feb). This is cause for great celebration here in China. More about that in a future note, but for the moment, the hotel now has it's traditional New Year tree up with little red packets and firecrackers (to scare off evil spirits) and presents below. It reminds me of a Christmas tree, Chinese style!
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| Sarah & Rod in front of the Chinese New year tree |
Every year around this time, the hotel has a “Thank you” dinner for various businesses and long term guests. This was a very nice dinner with lots of entertainment (musicians, magicians, dancers, and I’m not sure what all else…we left at 8:30 before I’m sure they got really wound up! It was a traditional Chinese dinner, quite tasty…and yes, we really have gotten the hang of chop sticks!
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| Joe & Karen (our neighbors), Sarah & Rod and Guido (our friend and work colleague) |
So, that's about it for now. Thank you for your continued prayers, and yes, keep those emails coming!
Sarah & Rod
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