What are the odds of a white Christmas in London?

This may seem a delightfully vague, almost rhetorical question, but to the English it is an incredibly serious matter, considered with mathematical precision.

Newspapers have been reporting the mathematical probability of a white Christmas for days, and thousands will drop into the bookmaker to place a bet either way. After a cold snap last weekend, it was reported that the odds had narrowed to 9-2, but have widened right out again since the arrival of a puff of mild air off the atlantic, and even the weatherman is saying that a white Christmas is "now unlikely."

Oxford Street Christmas lights

With weather a favourite topic of conversation among Englanders, its no surprise that you overhear discussions on white Christmases everywhere you go, particularly after a few snowflakes fell on London for the first time a few days ago. But even though their hopes of building snowmen on Christmas morning have been dashed, secretly everyone is relieved that this year's leadup to winter has been a little more blizzard-free than last year.

For the past two months, people have been remarking how warm it is (although temperatures were still a good deal cooler than a Sydney winter), compare to large snowfalls they saw early as last October, and a full-on snowstorm just days before Christmas.

The pre-Christmas buildup has been intense here - the shops have been decorated since late October, and groups of carollers have been strolling about in the evenings for weeks. A small choir has even invaded Liverpool Street station, their dulcet tones spreading out over the waves of hurried commuters. Oxford and Regent streets have been rigged up with complex displays of lighting in the shape of giant cobwebs and department stores like Selfridges and Harrods are so illuminated they are difficult to look at.

Selfridges all lit up

Hyde Park has been turned into "Winter Wonderland", a sort of Germanic themed Christmas market, with an ice rink, amusement rides, and big huts selling mulled wine, hot cider, bratwurst and other treats and delights. 

The general level of people's enthusiasm is also in overdrive - most seem to have been counting down the days until the big day for a couple of weeks now. In Australia Christmas coincides with the summer holidays, and most people take a pretty substantial break, so I suspect the excitement is more about getting some time off work, and getting to go to the beach instead of staring out at the nice weather through the office window.

Here, people are getting into it big time. Mince pies are being quaffed by the truckloads, homes are being lavishly decorated and embarrassing-looking Christmas jumpers are being dusted off. Adam even had a "wear your Christmas jumper day" at his work. People are busy decorating their homes, and if you don't have a tree, tinsel and some outdoor lighting scheme you are dismissed as being "bah, humbug."

We visited some family in Belfast a couple of weeks before the big day, and the excitement was palpable. Adam's cousin and her family were big into the event. With two small children, there was a flurry of decoration, stocking-hanging and letter writing.

Outside Belfast City Hall

They had even signed up for a personalised video letter from Santa, where you put in your child's name, what they want for Christmas and say whether they have been naughty or nice. The child then gets a video message, which tells them whether they are going to get their desired gift. You can even look up stats on which awful parents around the world actually had the message say that their kid was naughty and wouldn't be getting anything!

Belfast City Hall was all lit up, with Christmas-themed markets in little gingerbread houses lining the foreground. Crowds braved the chills and sleety rain to munch on Bratwurst, sip mulled wine and shop for candies, fudge and tacky nic-nacs to line Christmas stockings. There was even a "meats of the world" stall, selling burgers made from Ostrich, Kangaroo and Wild Boar among other things.

The historic Crown hotel

Downtown Belfast has some delightful little alleyways leading off one of the main shopping streets. Wander down one of these and you stumble on an amazing variety of little pubs and eateries. We had delicious hearty seafood pies at the Morning Star. There is also a cluster of historic pubs around the Europa Hotel. The interior of The Crown is a sight to behold - it is covered floor to ceiling in intricate stained glass - which was requisitioned from another important construction project taking place at the time it was being built. There are also a row of ornately carved wooden alcoves, offering groups a quiet place to sit around their own private table.

Wallabies in Wales

Seeing your national team play an away match while you are on the road is a big thrill. But to see the Wallabies playing in rugby-mad Wales, where an entire city comes out to party every time there is an international test, is a near-spiritual experience.

Wales rugby merchandise

Cardiff is just a two and a half hour train ride from London. When we boarded the 9am service from Paddington, the carriage was already full of Welsh rugby fans (or England supporters in disguise) lining their stomachs with cans of guinness and bloody marys in plastic cups - they had even remembered to bring along celery sticks!

Wales is somewhat of an underdog amongst the top tier nations of the rugby world, but it definitely wins full marks for having the most heart. The fiercely determined side showed this by nearly toppling France in the semi-final of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, losing by just a point but never once giving up hope - there was even an attempted shot at goal from the halfway line in the dying minutes of the match.

The fiercely proud Welsh, with their never-say-die attitude, are passionate about their history and culture and are fighting to protect their language. They are doing a fantastic job of it, with Wales officially a bilingual nation and one in five people speaking the Welsh language - a mean feat considering its difficult grammer and tongue-twisting pronunciation! 

And they are absolutely nuts about rugby. While it is almost impossible to find a pub in London that will put a rugby match on their tellie - they're permanently glued to football - rugby is the national sport in Wales. Cardiff comes to a standstill every time there is an international match played - its central streets are pedestrianised and the stadium is right in the centre of town, right by the bar and restaurant precinct. The result is mayhem - the city's narrow arteries are clogged with red and green clad rugby afficionados and every pub is packed to the gills.

The Welsh regimental mascot - a goat with silver tipped horns!

The Australia v Wales match wasn't part of any official tournament, and its outcome didn't actually have any bearing, but this didn't bother the Welsh. The pre-match build-up in Cardiff's millenium stadium pulled out all stops.

Nearly a whole quarter of the seating was taken up by choral singers from all over Wales, who performed traditional hymns in Welsh. Wales has a strong tradition of vocal performance, being dubbed the "land of the song" and is the home of the eisteddfod, a gaelic music and culture festival.

As their beloved starting team was announced, the crowd roared, and was nearly drowned out by vertical pillers of flames - presumably something to do with dragons - being lit around the edges of the stadium. The bellowing spectators weren't much interested in the particulars of the opposing team. The announcer even started introducing the players in reverse order, and didn't realise he had started at number 1 even though the pictures went from number 15, until he reached halfback Will Genia's name!

Fire breathers

There is one problem with seeing your team play an away game. It is very difficult to get excited when every time your team does something good, everyone else is silent or you have to contend with a chorus of exasperated sighs. We went to the match with a rugby-mad Welsh family, which are members of the Welsh Rugby Union, so you can imagine how many fellow Wallabies supporters were in the vicinity. It is quite eerie shouting out encouragement to your team when they score, only to be met with silence and the odd death stare.

The home side had a reasonably strong start, and by the end of first half either side could have come away with a victory. The Wallabies initially looked under pressure, and the crowd responded eagerly with constant singing and chanting. But their cries gradually faded as enthusiasm wore off, dawning on the fans that Wales would probably lose. When the Wallabies started a 21-point scoring streak early in the second half, the silence was deafening.

Wallaby pride in a sea of red

The Wallabies won 24-18, but Wales was not denied a fairytale ending when they scored right on the 80th minute - the never-say-die resolve intact. The try scorer was national hero Shane Williams, a winger playing his final match for Wales before retirement. If you didn't know the outcome, you wouldn't have guessed that Wales lost as thousands of rugby fans converged excitedly on central Cardiff, where thousands were already installed in pubs watching the match on TV.

On the obligatory post-match pub crawl, we called in at a number of establishments along Mary Street, the main drag in the entertainment precinct. All were incredibly crowded, stuffy and played terrible 1980s music. We eventually retired to Bridgend where our Welsh hosts live, half an hour from central Cardiff, and plonked ourself down in a bay window seat at the local boozer.

Our Wales weekender would not be complete without a drive around the rugged South Wales coastline. At the seaside town of Porthcawl, where miners would take their families to a company-built holiday resort or caravan park, surfers were dotted in the choppy breaks, even though it was December and the water temperature down to single figures.

The ruins of Ogmore castle on the river Ewenny

The area around nearby Ogmore beach is clustered with rolling sand dunes and is popular with horseriders who gracefully canter through on their steeds on their way to the open expanse of beach. This is the largest sand dune complex in the UK, and was used to film parts of Lawrence of Arabia. Unfortunately we didn't really get too close to the beach, being winter, and fat droplets of rain had started to fall. It was extremely cloudy so visibility was poor, although you could still see a vague strip of land across the Bristol Channel to Somerset county in England.

Other local landmarks we visited on our little adventure included the ruins of Ogmore castle, a Norman construction dating from about the 12th century. Perched on a flood-prone river bank, this sight is somewhat overshadowed by a path of enormous "stepping stones" that allow you to cross from one side of the river to the other. A stone bridge with round sheep-sized holes in it used to function as a sheep dipping station. Farmers would push the sheep through the holes and into the river below, stripping the sheep of lice and other nasties in their wool before they were sheared.

South Wales is incredibly green, thanks to the plentiful supply of rain, and this part of it boasts lush, arable farmland. Narrow country laneways are lined with ancient stone walls, many of them dry stone meaning they are just very strategically placed rocks with no mortar to join them. The village of Merthyr Mawr has a beautifully preserved collection of thatched cottages which once belonged to a large nearby estate and used to house the servants and other staff. The cottages are arranged around a village green, their thatched rooves fitting snugly over their windows.

In Bejing, everything is on the menu!

The quality of the food in Beijing exceeds expectations on all levels, from cheap noodle bars and street food to swanky dining establishments. Most places we went were surprisingly good value, although all hotels and restaurants slap on a 15 per cent service charge. You can get a steaming bowl of wanton noodles or a big basket of dumplings for 10 yuan ($1.50) at a hutong eatery, or a fancy meal out for 100 yuan ($15.00) per person.

Baozi

Finding a nice meal at neighbourhood eateries is a lucky dip, as most menus don't have English translations. The best strategy is to find one with pictures of the dishes displayed on the walls, and point to anything that looks tasty. Trying to learn the names of dishes in Mandarin is basically an exercise in futility, as no one will be able to understand your feeble attempts at pronouncing the language. I just stuck to hello, thank you and used my fingers to indicate the quantity of whatever I wanted.

For breakfast, we indulged in Baozi – a sort of oversized bready dumpling that was almost the texture of a pork bun and filled with spicy beef mince. They are sold in little shops all over Beijing, stored in stacks of metal steamers.

At dusk, Donghuamen, or Snack Street as it is better known, comes alive with a seemingly endless row of food vendors, staffed by an army identically clad in white chef’s coats and red sunvisors. There are skwers of just about anything you can conceive, from westerner friendly chicken and beef to insects including scorpions, grasshoppers and the downright bizarre, snake and sheep’s penis.

Can't believe I ate one of these critters!

Inspired by Karl Pilkington’s “An Idiot Abroad” I was determined to try the scorpion. I was a little discouraged when I saw a tourist eat one of the crunchy insects, much to the horror of her Chinese companions who refused to touch the stuff. Undeterred, I bought a skewer, and to my surprise it actually didn’t taste so bad, probably due to the delicious barbeque marinade and the fact that it was so overcooked it had the texture of a kettle chip.

We had an amazing roast duck feast at Beijing Da Dong, actually two because we liked the place so much we ended up going back a few days later. The famous ducks are strung up and baked in an enormous clay kiln which looks like a woodfired pizza oven. They are tended by dedicated chefs who haul the cooked specimens out with long sticks. The ducks are then hung up on a rack and another chef tips them upside down and pours a rather copious amount of fat out of them. They are then plopped on platters and taken out and sliced at diners’ tables by servers with white coats and surgical masks.

Peking duck is carved with surgical precision

It wasn’t just the outstanding (and surprisingly lean) Peking Duck that had us coming back for more. Da Dong has an extensive and exquisite menu, presented in an enormous volume that numbers over 100 pages. There was an amazing variety of beautifully presented entrees, including mushrooms accompanied by tomato beer in a teacup, Szechuan spiced chicken with a tube of microscopically diced watermelon and passionfruit paste, and a delicate pomegranate seed salad. I spotted a dish made from fairy floss at one table – it was served on long stalks that were placed in an edible garden. Even the ubiquitous complimentary fruit served at the end of the meal was delicately presented on a mystical bed of dry ice.

Another must-taste on the culinary agenda is hot pot, Beijing style. We were ushered into a dining room clad in garish red and gold decorations and sat at an enormous table (way too big for the four of us) equipped with a lazy Susan and individual hotpot burner. These brassy burners were vaguely reminiscent of a fondue set, with the stock bubbling in a ring around a central tower, and a kerosene burner underneath.

Food coma - delicious Beijing hot pot

The concept of hotpot is simple. Your order stacks of raw meat, sliced thinly and rolled up, vegetables including mushrooms, bean sprouts, spinach and lotus root along with other delights like bean curd, dumplings and various meaty balls. The raw materials appear on the lazy Susan within seconds piled high on enormous platters and you cook them yourself in your hotpot and fish the finished products out with your chopsticks.

Some foods, like meat slices and greens, cook in seconds while the dumplings and balls take a few minutes. It’s easy to forget what you have brewing in there. Waitstaff buzz around the table, topping up your hotpot with extra stock and skimming off any gunk that accumulates at the top of the broth.

Arguments over who should pay the bill are common in Beijing. In Chinese culture only one person pays the bill for the group, but this is often not decided on until the end of the meal. We saw a very heated argument between members of a group over who would pay, and the loser (who did not have to pay) ended up storming out of the restaurant.

See! I really ate a scorpion

Finding decent accommodation in Beijing is not that easy – most of the listings on various travel sites have been trashed by unhappy customers. Staying in a courtyard hotel on one of the hutongs is a great way to get in amongst the action, but the problem is most cab drivers will not be able to find them, and your attempts at even saying the name of the street will prove futile.

Nonetheless, we were extremely happy with Sitting on the City Walls. Tucked away in a maze of alleyways behind Jingshan Park, a stone’s throw from the forbidden city, The spotless rooms were set around a beautifully atmospheric covered courtyard, decorated with Buddhas, rock art and even a replica terra cotta warrior and lots of tables and comfy lounges to sit at.