Nur in China!!! UNIVERSIADE & The World's Biggest Ice Sculpture Festival :)

When it comes to make an introductory sentence here, I feel myself just like Ted Mosby and remember his first sentence each time he starts to tell a story of how he he met his soul mate and got married. We almost all know that famous sentence, don't we?

"Kids, this is the story of how..."



Very kind Chinese volunteers welcomed us at the Beijing Airport



Nooo, I'm definitely not gonna use such a childish word that'll make you feel like a kid :) Yet, I can borrow a part of his famous sentence, right? So...

This is How My Fantastic Story BEGAN in China!

Date:13 February '09

Time: 21:30

I was pretty excited not only for I would go go China but also I would spend my 23rd St. Valentine's Day by flying! It was Awesome!

The plane was supposed to take off at 23:30 and I was so ready to celebrate St. Valentine's Day in an airplane on the way to China.

In fact, I expected some small surprises in the plane for the guests (as I worked in the hospitality sector, I am used to call costumers as "guest") during our flight. However, unfortunately all we were serviced were nuts, any kind of beverage, and a super food menue, but not something special for St. Valentine :(

The important thing Turkish Airlines had to learn from this, was they needed to get such crazy expectations of such crazy guests like me.

The important thing that I had to learn was that I should have decreased my expectations in the life and been happier girl! (Could I manage to do this? Of course I didn't :) )

Finally I was in the plane and opened my diary to write about my first observations of my long journey, but guess what happened?

While I was trying to open the head piece of my pen, something happened and some ink from the pen dropped on my new Lacoste shirt I just had worn! ( I skip this story for now but I'll go back to this subject again! )

After 20-hour flight finally we we got manage to land at the Harbin Airport in China! 



God! I would eat her!!! Chinese babies and kids are really so sweet!!!
BTW, if you go to Mc Donald's in China they don't sell mayonnaise, I tried really hard to tell what mayonnaise is and finally I made them understand it showing a little mayonnaise between the two hamburger breads from the picture on the wall because nobody could speak English there!

 And.. This is How I Was About to Die within my first 5 Minutes

(An Izmirian in Siberia)

Place: Harbin Airport, China

As I thought I didn't need my gloves to weat because our bus seemed to me only 1 minute away by walking from where we were.

I can tell you many other mistakes that I've done so far but this time it almost costed my life!

Why nobody warned me about the temperature outside???

GOD it was - 20 degree!

P.S. It was +16 degree one day ago when I left from Izmir.

When some friends from Turkish Ski Federation helped me to get in the bus half of my body was totally frozen, I was able to move my hands and fingers after 35-minute hand masaage. GOD! Even my brain was about to get frozen!

AWESOME ICE SCULPTURE FESTIVAL

The enterance of fantastic Ice sculptures

DID YOU KNOW THAT? Harbin Ice Festival provides the visitors each year a whole new world of ice and snow. The best collections of ice artworks are exhibited.

Though I attempted to visit Ice Sculptures in Harbin City twice, I only managed to visit it once because of the freezing cold!


I wore THREE snow gloves, 4 wool socks and guess how many snow clothes on me.. And I was finally ready to see fantastic Ice Sculptures!

First you ascend these stairs to go to Acropolis, then you take a sled to ski between these ice columns.

Have you ever seen a camel in -25 degree? I have :)

I highly recommend you to click on the link below and see amazing photos of the ice sculptures:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=harbin+ice+sculpture+festival&rlz=1R2ADBF_enTR400&wrapid=tljp129141415307840&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=7Wv5TIiTAYPA8QPLt5TECQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&sqi=2&ved=0CC0QsAQwAg&biw=1006&bih=421

That's the hotel I stayed, 33rd floor :)

 And in this photo you can see Harbin City.

Don't let the sun trick you, it's -15 degree!!!

See people are skiing on the frozen river :) But as soon as I was taken this photo I ran into our car. Couldn't wait outside even for 2 mins!
The girl next to me is our assistant Dora, she was very friendly and helpful to us!
She even bargained with Chinese sellers for me! :)
Dora WE LOVE YOU!

BTW Hope you are not curious about the name of this frozen river in Harbin, because I couldn't keep in mind even a single Chinese name. The only 3 things I could keep in mind are "sheshe (thank you), gambei (cheers),  nihao (hello)"

Time to Tell About Friends & Colleagues

Caroline & me :) my kuzu

I have a sister in my extended family (the bigger heart you have the more siblings you have in your extended family, it's directly proportional) She's Caroline. Don't let her name trick you, she loves Turkey and can speak Turkish very well! 

Some nights before we sleep we used to have some fun  in Harbin :) I used to speak Turkish English ( bikoz ay vaz veri gud et Törkiş İngiliş) and as she is a Belgian she used to speak French English :) We were really good at this game and we enjoyed really a lot, at least we were falling asleep with funny smiles on our faces :) Try it with your friends, it's so fun!!!

I already used to call her (my dear Caroline) kuzu (sheep) in Turkish, but one day when I was in a shopping mall in Harbin I saw a kuzu (it was a lovely Chinese sheep, see the photo below) and since then I've been calling her as Çinli kuzu (Chinese Sheep) :))

In this photo, Turkish University Sports Federation Kemal Tamer, mayor of Edmonton Stephen Mandel, Ed Zemrau and Canadian Olympic Committee Staff.

 

Me and Caro in the Banquet of Canada.

One of the most beautiful banquets I attended.

Canadians are really so kind and gentle.

I would have worked with the Canadian Olympic Committee if Canada could have won Universiade 2015 bid. It's destiny!

 My great China story hasn't ended here... I'm gonna share more about my visit to China... But now it's time to get some sleep! :)