My long awaited campaign, Winter of Dongbei, my winter tour, which I had postponed a year ago because of health reason. This was my third winter of my life and second time seeing snow flakes falling from the heavenly sky.
I spent my winter tour in this town called Heihe (黑河) in the province of Heilongjiang (黑龙江). This town was located north of Heilongjiang, one of the border-crossing town between Russian and Chinese.
I set off my journey from Hongkong to Shanghai to transit to Haerbin (哈儿滨). A friend of mine knew that I was in the region contacted me and I took a six hours train to Nanjing, north from Shanghai, to meet up with her.
I visited Nanjing for four days and left for Harebin. The train took about 28 hours to reach Harerbin. I spent a night in the city and left for Hegang (鹤岗) to meet some friends. I spent two nights in here before I went to my final destination, Heihe.
Heihe was a small isolated town. Transport system to the town was not comprehensive. It took me quite a while travelling to a few towns to get the right stations that take me to Heihe. God is good. I managed to travel smoothly and less waiting time during transit. Travel to places like these and in an unpredicted weather, if you missed the transport, you might wait for another day or two.
Many people asked me why was I doing in such a remote condition. Three reasons, I want to ski, I want to learn Russian as my forth language and my annual personal retreat.
I cancelled my skiing trip because i felt over slippery ice on the roads consecutively for three days. The third fall really put my body in a very bad physical condition. My buttock was bleeding and my waists was hurt badly. In fact I rested three days before i moved again.
I had signed up for my Russian language class and hope to start blogging in Russian soon.
Most important of all for this winter tour was my personal retreat. Last year retreat I had charted my next decade plan, (The World Is my Home). This retreat was to evaluate on my vision and goals. Living in solitude then I could reflect upon my life, refocused on my vision if i had deviated. Whatever was out of alignment, I would tune it back, just like tuning my guitar strings.