Have you ever seen a Liger? Travel time for China Gappers

Hengdaohezi Siberian Tiger Park - photo courtesy of scenery.cultural-china.com

Well, the winter season has overtaken the city and plunged us all into the negative double digits. Surprisingly (and disappointingly) the snow only occurred three or four times, and none as heavy as the first. The sun didn’t rise until we were on the bus to school, and set while we were on our return journey. The air remained still and we did not suffer the Siberian winds as we had feared we would. That said, we are told it is still Shenyang’s coldest winter in years.

So, with days sinking below -15, the glass in the corridors started freezing. As did everyone’s footprints. I almost stacked it half a dozen times in the same place on my way to class, but then I’m a slow learner. The classes that are on duty during these days (one class a week has to stand in designated places, inside and out, during the breaks) were incredibly unlucky and donned their thick school jackets and accompanied their monitor sashes with multiple scarfs. Every one of them was shaking every time I saw them.

So, the school term began to come to an end and we had to mark our students. How do you mark over a thousand students on their oral English skills? One on one, of course. At least that was our idea. My advanced thirteen year olds, who I have twice a week, were theonly class I finished using this method. I played them a movie and took them aside one at a time. It took 3 weeks and I only got through half of the rest, so I put together a written test to substitute the oral exam (unfair, I know, but its better than giving the rest a mark averaged from the kids I DID test, and the school doesn’t place a very high regard on our results anyway). During these tests I met students I swear I had never seen before, and found out that some of the boys were actually girls and vice versa. It was an eye-opening experience.

At last, the final classes came around and I dropped the news that we would not be staying with the school another semester (thanks to some misleading advice). I was shocked, as at the end of class, the students rushed my desk asking for my autograph on all their diaries and English textbooks and work books and loose paper and hands and tissues and... well anything they could grab. It was chaos. I gave them all my email address, and have received a couple of emails from some students. Oneasked what city I would be moving to, so she could hate it the rest of her life. Unfortunately, I don’t support extremist fanaticism, and I didn’t know which city it would be, so I didn’t tell her. They are great kids and I will really miss them.

After Hayley and I had finished up our classes and said our goodbyes, we got together with Dervla, another foreign teacher from Ireland, and we went skiing. It was one hell of a bus ride up a mountain in the freezing cold. Once we got to the top of the mountain, we changed over to a van, which took us along a terrifying frozen 4x4 track around the back of the slopes. I was bracing myself against all four sides of the van and searching for a way to escape if we rolled, but in the end all was safe. Then we hit the ski slopes. We got our crashes out of the way early so we could enjoy a calm afternoon. Then we hired a taxi and had a much quicker, much warmer ride home. Thank god.

On the first Monday of our holidays, we caught a train to Harbin. But only just. We had arrived at the station a little early but had not anticipated the distance we would have to walk INSIDE the station, nor the staircases leading over the tracks. We we own with us, so lugging our suitcases over all those stairs was a nightmare. We were on the train no more than a minute before it began to roll towards the frozen north. It seemed every seat on the train was occupied, and people switched and swapped at will, wandering down the isle on their phone, stopping at every row for a quick sit in any empty chair before moving to the next. It took 6 and a half hours. Upon arriving, we noticed ice sculptures everywhere. They lined the streets and filled the parks, and this wasn’t even the ice world.

On the second day, we went to the Siberian Tiger Park. If you are ever in this part of the world, you MUST go there. We went on a safari-esque bus ride, where our bus actually got attacked by tigers. But fear not! The entire bus is re-enforced with a metal cage. And this is not even the scary part. After you get off the bus, there is a raised walkway for you to see the tigers from. Once up here, you can pay 20RMB to hold a piece of meat out of the cage for the tigers to fight over. They climb up on the side of the cage and push each other off in their attempts. Of course, its not as simple as that. For 60RMB you can buy a live chicken, which can throw to the tigers. Seem cruel? Well for 2800RMB you can buy a cow, yes a cow, to release into the tigers enclosure. Fortunately, we only saw chickens ravaged by the beasts. In the back of the park they also have a collection of other big cats, from white tigers to jaguars and even the rare liger (a tiger crossedwith a lion). They are all big and ferocious, and I would not like to run into any without the metal bars to protect me.

That night we went to the Ice World. Wow. It was amazing. A massive area filled with massive ice buildings, all lit up from the inside with coloured lights. There were ice slides and ice towers and horses and carriages and yaks. We wandered around for hours, climbing towers and taking photos. It is truly an amazing thing to se, and unlike anything you could find back home.

Just before we left Harbin for Beijing, the company handling us dropped the news that we do not have a second placement. Hayley and I are set on staying for another semester, so we cancelled the rest of our travel plans and are staying in Beijing until we sort out our own placement. Thanks to the incredibly kind generosity of my friend’s father, we are staying for free in his hotel for a few days. The biggest challenge we seem to be facing now is choosing a job, because we have so many people helping us find one. We will resume our travels soon, as we still have enough time to see everything we want to see.