17.1.2010 von Ines.

As I love outdoor sports like rock climbing, skiing, mountaineering I was looking forward to the Banff Mountain Film Festival coming to Beijing. A friend rock climber and mountaineer has opened a bar and cafe down the Wudaoying hutong where my bike shop is. It is called the “Together Cafe”. Inside there are many outdoor magazines and pictures from his expeditions to Tibet. The film festival started yesterday and I actually wanted to go but never checked the schedule. When I finally looked yesterday afternoon I was shocked to see that the first movie screening session was already over as it had started at 9am and the second one was already on going. So we could only go today and went for the early starting screening. There were quite some people even though I think there were only 3 foreigners.

We saw a movie called “Cliff Note” (悬崖笔记) about cliff diving in a canyon. Amazing was a movie about free solo rock climbing and then base jumping from the top. Or just base jumping when you fall during the free solo climbing. Also doing slack line balancing between peaks or cliffs without being secured and also just using the base jumping parachute in case you fall.

I enjoyed the movie called “Searching for the coast Wolves” (寻狼记). It was the very touching story of the former cross country running champion and biologist Gudrun Pflueger from Austria about her research about the coast wolves in Western Canada. She actually had an encounter with the coast wolves that seem not to have any bad experience with human beings in the past centuries and therefore did not see any threat in Gudrun and just played around her.

The Chinese movie maker Ricard was asked to come up and to talk about his outdoor movies. One is called “Dragon Breath”. On the back of the DVD is reads (including the typos) the following: “During the Spring Fesitaval, four Chinese top climbers came to Shuangqiao Gully, located in Mt Siguniang in Sichuan, to challenge the Dragon Breath, the hardest route in the vally. This documentary record their climbing and life in the vally.” They only screened trailers of 4 of his movies and of course we recognized some of our Chinese outdoor and climbing friends in these movies.

After that we met our friend Nicolas Favard who is a French jewelry maker. He does very beautiful jewelry and each piece is unique. He designs pieces of art for his customers. If you are in Beijing I recommend you drop by his boutique in Sanlitun in the Nali Patio on the 3rd floor.

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10.1.2010 von Ines.

Finally for the first time this winter we went ice skating. Every year they change the layout on the qianhai lake in the center of teh city. This year there is no free area (like last year) which is a good way to control the number of people on the ice. We decided to buy the 10.-RMb ticket for the big open space even though we saw that this year the designated ice-rink was a little bit bigger than last year. As always there were hardly any people on ice skates. The typical view is like this:

So still the small wooden chairs on the iron frame are the most popular. But this year the price for the ice bicycles increased and we hardly saw any. But a new think is the electric bumper cars.

The games near the island on the lake were not so popular, like the basketball or the dart ballon:

Or also the throw the hoop around random objects game was also not attracting many people today:

Next time we go ice skating we will go in the skating rink as the ice was very chopped up in the main area. This year they also made a special section for the ice scating lessons and one section for ice hockey. Very smart idea. I hope it stays cold and dry

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27.12.2009 von Ines.

If you are thinking that we are on a long skiing weekend and staying in a nice hotel or mountain hut then you are wrong. As the ski resort is artificial it is just somewhere.  So the place where were staying was just like a guest house across from factory buildings.

Today I decided to wear another layer. But it still felt cold. It was -21 degrees C. And it was slightly moist as it had actually snowed a little tiny bit last night. And the clouds were still hanging around the top peak of the Wanlong skiing resort. So the cold was just freezing any part of the face that was exposed.

Today we rented snowboards. Our rock climbing friends were also snowboarding so we did some routes together with them. Sam had to take breaks to teach his daughter how to ski. Actually almost after every second or third slope we had to come inside to warm up.

I also met cycling friends that usually ride mountain bikes tha also came here for a Christmas ski weekend. It amazes me again and again how small Beijing is. When the sun came out we saw how beautiful everything looked with the slight snow coating.

But it was the same icy cold feeling despite the sun. All pictures are in this webalbum. And we were lucky: Today our favorite chair lift broke down and we were not on the lift when that happened. It must have been so freezing for the people stuck on the lift. We only had 2 options for lifts and we could not do our favorite run. But it was still a very nice day.

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26.12.2009 von Ines.

Yeah! Skiing! Our bus was the first one to arrive at the Wanlong skiing resort. We rented skiing shoes and Salomon carving skis. And then went up with the first lift. The weather was nice with blue skies - just really icy cold. The Wanlong resort is the biggest and most difficult skiing resort around Beijing. So here you see the Chinese that can ski. The slopes are really nice. But it is artificial snow as the Beijing area is too dry in winter with almost no snow fall. So it looks like this with brown mountains around:

They had made some artificial muggles (bumps). We tried skiing them but I think they still need to work on them as they were just some spiky piles of hard snow.

As it is very dry and there had been huge wind on the night of December 24th the snow outside of the actual ski slopes was covered with dust, sand and earth. In some cases it gave a dessert or beach like feeling.

We skied an off-piste route. At the top it was completely icy and then it was just so weird to ski through the brown covered snow.

It was funny to find a sign in the middle of all the trees indicating that we could continue to ski straight down or go more left. I have never seen such a sign in Europe. And some off-piste routes are many kilometers long and you might actually get lost.

At the main building of the resort a fat Chinese guy got upset that Julien can ski well. I have never seen a Chinese guy get mad like this because of nothing. It was very surreal but it seems he has a huge inferiority complex. Oh well, next time we better pretend that we cannot ski well. More pictures of today are in this webalbum.

After the full day of being out in the freezing cold air we took a long hot shower to de-frost our fingers and toes. Then there was a huge hotpot dinner together with the Chinese outdoor group.

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25.12.2009 von Ines.

Actually I wanted to join a fun Christmas bike ride this morning. But due to me eating too much last night I decided it might be better to sleep and digest. Then of course I went to the shop. It was a nice sunny day. In the evening we went on a bus out to the North-West of Beijing to the skiing resort. We went with a Chinese outdoor travel group. It was so cold outside that the humidity of the 60 people on the bus froze on the inside of the bus windows and made very interesting pattens. Some like pearl chains, some like flowers.

The skiing resort is not so far away, but with the strong traffic and a huge traffic jam on the Badaling highway just because of the toll gate it actually took us 5 hours to get there. They showed 2 full movies as well as the Fischer “Holy Carving Bible” movie filmed in China showing us how to ski. Now we know and should be ready for tomorrow.

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19.9.2009 von Ines.

Friends had their wedding today in the center of Tours in the main Cathedral.

The wedding couple greeted all the guests standing outside of the cathedral.

The inside of the cathedral was very nice.

After the wedding ceremony everybody was talking pictures of the family.

And then all the wedding guests were wishing them well.

I was happy to see there are bike lanes in Tours, but they were very narrow. The bike symbol was all crunched together.

After that we moved on to the Chateau de Vaugrignon for an apperitif with Champagne on the terrace of the chateau.

There we later had a very nice dinner with excellent food and drinks before the place was turned into a dance floor and we partied until sunrise.

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18.9.2009 von Ines.

We spent some time on the highway via Saint-Etienne to Clermont-Ferrand.

We went to the major French site “Puy de Dome” which is the highest of the volcanic mountains in the Auvergne.

From the Puy de Dome summit there is a good view of Clermont-Ferrand.

But the wind was very strong at the summit. It felt like we were being blown away. It helps to be a rock climber and able to hold ourselves on the fence.

By coincidence our friend Manu was accompanying a helicopter test flight (once in 2 years) and they were headed towards the Puy de Dome. So we waited in the cold wind trying look and listen out for a helicopter. Finally we saw them.

He was sitting in the back and waved at us. Unfortunately my camera is not so good, but you can see the guy with the white shirt.

A bit later we met with Manu and he took us to a magical fountain. The water contains gas that is released from the water and as there is a kind of natural siphon structure it erupts about every second when enough gas has gathered.

Val and Manu have bought a very nice old stone building that they have been renovating for some time already. It is getting more and more beautiful. In the evening after having some ham from a full pig leg we went to the inaugural concert of the Harmonic Orchestra of Clermont-Ferrand. They played various classical and modern pieces.

Geschrieben in France, Outdoors | 1 Kommentar »

17.9.2009 von Ines.

The weather was beautiful today. So we set out hunting for mushrooms in a forest near Lyon. It had been quite moist lately in this region but despite searching in vain we only managed to find 3 old ones. So we had to find something else for dinner.

The guys went to play some tennis and the girls (Nanu and me) went inline skating.

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16.9.2009 von Ines.

We continued on to the Chartreuse Mountains to a small village called Le Cirque de Saint-Meme. At the beginning of the short hike was the first small waterfall.

But hiking up brought us into the clouds. The forest became foggier.

When we arrived at the 3rd waterfall it was hard to see it at all. It must be more impressive in the spring time when it hass more water.

But it seems to be quite moist here most of the year as some trees were completely covered with moss.

At the end of the hike there was a short moment that I could see the actual cliffs of the Chartreuse mountains peaking through the clouds.

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15.9.2009 von Ines.

Annecy is a nice small town. It is located on a lake that is perfect for sailing.

The old town center is very beautiful. I had a picture taken the Chinese style.The idea is that the person isin the center covering the building of interes almost completely and having the hand in the typical V sign.

Here is another picture of the town historical island from the other side.

It was very nice to see Sandrine and Seb again after such a long time. Unfortunately they were too busy with work and their new apartment so they could not join us for any outdoor activity. Maybe next time we meet again

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