We made the five day train trip from Ekaterinburg to Harbin arriving on 24th Jan. Met a guy called John (from London) in Ekaterinburg who was doing the same journey as us and ended up in the same cabin. With the three of us we had a crazy chinese lady, called Oliya (?!?!?). She spoke no English, but we managed to communicate with the help of our language guide in the back of our guidebook and lots of hand signals! She had a daughter called Anna who from what we could work is a child genius. She plays musical instruments, speaks three languages, is top in her class in maths (the only thing she isn't good as it sport - and the piano because its too expensive to learn). She was very entertaining - but admitted to us before we got to the border that she was travelling on an out of date passport. In preparation for the border she put on lots of make up and did her hair in the hope that she could kiss her way to freedom! But, the guards noticed the date in her passport straight away... took her and all her luggage off the train.. and we didn't see her again!

Harbin is much colder around minus 20! We went to the ice festival which was pretty impressive, but FREEZING! Apart from that there isn't so much to do in Harbin, we're looking forward to getting to Beijing tomorrow, by overnight train tonight.

The cold is starting to get to us a bit - hopefully Beijing won't be as cold as it is here.. and then in a couple of weeks we'll be in Vietnam in the sun! Planning on spending the first few days on a beach!

Thanks for all of your messages it's great to read them when we log on - keep them coming!!!

PS. for Tom and the rest of you who sent messages: Just to remind you it's a mickey mouse cup. Shula would like to make clear she has nothing to do with this comment!

We can't upload photos because no one will let us put CDs into the computers or connect our camera... they are very strict about computer and internet use here! Hopefully we can get some up from Hong Kong in first week of Feb.

We'll update again from Beijing!!!! xxxx