Dear Backers,

On behalf of all 23 Antarctica Expedition students, we would like to express our sincere gratitude for all your generous support given to our "Extreme Environment: Antarctica" Project. Our FREEZE FRAME Exhibition has finally been completed, and it will be open to public for viewing. We invite you to join us as we culminate our 13 research findings from our Antarctica trip into this new media art exhibition, revealing discovery-enriched and inter-disciplinary curriculum.

Exhibition Name: FREEZE FRAME
Date: 24th May – 14th June 2014
Venue: Lobby, G/F, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, City University of Hong Kong, 18 Tat Hong Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

We are looking forward to seeing you in the coming Opening Ceremony.

Yours sincerely,
The Antarctica Expedition Team
City University of Hong Kong

城大23名本科生已抵達南極並開始探索，在冰天雪地中展示中國國旗和香港區旗，向城大師生、教職員、校友、FringeBacker的支持者及全港市民送上聖誕祝福。

Travelling long haul anywhere is rarely pleasant. You are cramped into a small seat, your legs and backs get stiff, and even the heaviest sleepers can’t get much slumber time.

But this time the discomfort was worth it. We were heading to the other side of the planet, a region so far south it had claim to everything from the “Southernmost Golf Course” to the “Southernmost Casino”.

Our destination was Ushuaia, the southernmost province of Argentina. This would be our gateway to Antarctica where our expedition would begin.

Our team of fearless adventurers from City University of Hong Kong had met early in the afternoon on the day of the send off for final preparations. Scott Hessels and Alexander Aw had been working on this Extreme Environments Expedition for several months, and today was the big day. A farewell reception had been arranged, followed by a swift dinner before we returned to the School of Creative Media to pick up all the equipment needed to conduct the 13 projects scheduled for the trip.

The logistics involved in moving 27 people from Kowloon Tong to Antarctica with all their personal kit plus the bulky equipment needed for our projects was a mammoth task. We were taking aerial drones, infra-red cameras, 3D cameras, 360 degrees cameras as well as lots of other recording devices. Teamwork was paramount.

At Chep Lap Kok airport, we faced our first hurdle – how to best avoid excess baggage fees. This was not going to be easy. Despite our best efforts, several bags were over the limit. The charges would be horrendous.

But we had a secret weapon: Alexander’s suave charm. He managed to sweet talk the check-in staff to get everyone checked in with zero extra baggage charges, saving us potentially thousands of dollars. He was the first hero of the trip. Scott in particular looked relieved. He is holding the purse strings for this trip.

After clearing immigration, we boarded our Qatar Airways flight at around midnight. Our destination was Doha, which was nine and a half hours away. We then had approximately three hours on the ground in transit, before another long haul to Argentina via Brazil. This leg took us over the entire African continent, followed by the Atlantic Ocean before descending into San Paolo in Brazil to change crew and take on some passengers, before heading off again an hour later for Buenos Aires.

Despite going through multiple time zones, though night and day, the trip felt like one long night. The blinds on the windows were down most of the time, and our inner clocks were beginning to get confused by the shifting time frames. Jet lag was encroaching.

Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, tired but upbeat, we faced the next big hurdle: clearing customs. We were concerned that some of the equipment might raise some attention and could cause delays. But our fears subsided as we managed to stride through, no questions asked. This was a relief.

We arrived at our hotel just outside the airport in Buenos Aires at about midnight. We had just four hours to rest until our last flight, down to Ushuaia. The hotel was very quaint, more like a family home, complete with garden compound and even Dillon, the family dog. While most of us grabbed a few horizontal hours – much needed shut-eye – a couple of the students worked heroically overnight, putting together circuit boards for the experiments. They were clearly running on adrenaline, and did a fantastic job.

The next morning brought another challenge: the baggage allowance for our Qatar flight was 23kg per person, but we were about to board a domestic Aerolineas Argentina flight with only a 15kg allowance. There was no way around not paying the excess, but the counter staff was friendly and as helpful as they could be.

The three-hour flight down to Ushuaia was now just a short hop for our seasoned travellers, and the scenery on our final approach was breathtaking. We flew down through snow-capped mountain and beautiful lush green valleys and inlets. The captain warned us the landing might get a bit turbulent but there was no cause for alarm. He brought us safely to ground and then to the gate.

After collecting our bags, we headed for the exit. An icy wind greeted us. The flight was over; the longest night had turned into day. We were now at the southernmost tip of South America, and the real work was about to begin.

We woke up early today and after breakfast the team, already getting into a routine, got suited up in the 'mud room'. We then headed out to the gangplank to board one of the Zodiac's heading in to shore. Today was a first; our landings so far had been only on islands, but now we were finally setting foot on the continent of Antarctica. We landed at Brown Base, a deserted Argentinian station situated next to a huge glacier. Rocks with a light covering of lichen stretched along the shoreline. The students left the shore and walked up the hill through very soft snow that made walking difficult. Upon reaching one of the marshals, we could choose to descend and explore the deserted old station or we could climb the 300m peak that stood proudly above us.

Many of us chose the latter and we started slowly walking uphill, and because the snow on either side hid dangerous crevices, we were very careful to stay on the path. At last we had climbed the peak and from the top the view over the entire bay was stunning; from our vantage point our ship looked like a small radio controlled boat.

After we had descended, I received a radio call from the ship, giving us permission to visit a manned base I had noticed whilst we were making out way down the channel.

Called Gonzales Base, it was manned by the Chilean military and they welcomed us with open arms. The students studying isolation got to interview some of the personnel there, and the Exchange Project team took the opportunity to barter with some of the other Chileans. After a very brief visit we headed back to the ship for lunch.

That afternoon was the time to stage our most flamboyant project, ‘The Wind’. Vladimir would be launching his kite from a Zodiac in freezing water and kite-boarding whilst a team filmed him and captured the data needed to model the kite's movements.

The crew from One Oceans was very helpful and directed all their attention to both our safety and to actually achieving this technical feat. After a bit of fiddly work to get all the kite’s lines untangled, Vladimir launched his kite and shortly after jumped into the icy waters with his board. Moments later he was up and moving away at speed; he was finally kite-boarding in Antarctica! The cameras were recording under the direction of project partner, Angson. Vladimir spent about 45 minutes traversing up and down in front of the cameras capturing the data. The ship’s captain decided to sound the ship’s horn and the sound boomed all around the small snow valley that we were sitting in. When he was later asked why he had sounded the horn, he proudly said, "Because one of our fellow Russians was sailing in Antarctica and we wanted to show him the ship’s support!" This was an admirable sentiment, yet in the safety briefing we had been given when we started, everyone had been told that if we ever heard the ship’s horn, we should all immediately return to the ship. As a result of the captain’s enthusiasm, the shore staff had difficulty doing their best to stop the stampede of people still on land, who were making their way to the landing point!

The flight was a success and a very cold and tired, but jubilant Vladimir returned to the ship for a Russian hero's welcome from the ship’s Russian crew. The other passengers were all very good about the confusion caused by the sounding of the horn and laughed at the captain’s reason for doing so. We had a great dinner before heading out for the night!

The students were to sleep out on the ice for the night in small self-dug trenches. We dropped them off and watched as they excitedly dug away the loose snow to make their beds for the night!

After sailing down a dramatic channel we reached our first landing point, Peterson Island. We were one excited team as we got into the Zodiacs that would take us on our first Antarctica experience. We landed and as we removed our life jackets, we were greeted by a group of Gentoo penguins. We then headed off for a penguin colony. The stench of the penguin poop that covered rocks was a shock to many of us, but this was soon forgotten as we took in the incredible panoramic view of the setting. We had the most amazing weather, with clear blue skies and little wind. The students set off in their groups to start collecting data. The penguin team set up the FLIR camera and began filming the Adele Penguins in infra-red video. Many penguins were delicately balancing a single egg between their feet, but one had already had her eggs hatch and was sheltering two 5-day old babies under her.

Angie headed out to film some icebergs for her architecture project, whilst the Micro-organism team were busy collecting water samples. Everyone who was not working on their own project helped out the others. With our first successful landing completed, we headed back to the ship for lunch and then sailed the ship to where we would land for the afternoon.

We donned our polar gear again and headed in to shore in Zodiac inflatable speedboats. We landed in a small rocky bay, and the students all split up. The Shapes team climbed to the top of the hill above the landing spot and set up the 360 degree camera, whilst a few test flew the drone. Angie continued her iceberg surveys. The second half of this excursion saw the teams taking to the water to cruise around and check out the wildlife. We came across a small Minke whale circling and feeding. We turned off the Zodiacs’ engines and drifted, waiting for the whale to re-surface. Several times the whale came close to our boat and then, at last, he startled us by surfacing less than two metres from the boat. The call came for us all to return to the ship and the end of our first day in Antarctica had come to an end!

Dec 18, 2013 - Depart Ushuaia
We all boarded the ship that would take us to Antarctica and after it departed Ushuaia at 6pm the students got settled into their rooms. Everyone then had dinner whilst listening to a briefing of what to expect over the coming days.

Dec 19, 2013 - The Crossing
After breakfast, the students began breaking out the equipment that they would be using over the coming days and took the opportunity to test everything whilst still onboard. We had a test flight of the drone inside the equipment room and those on the prisoner project interviewed several members of the crew about their isolation experiences. The Shapes Project team started using the 360-degree camera by capturing footage from around the ship. We also celebrated Vladimir's 21st birthday.

Dec 20, 2013 - The Crossing
As we neared Antarctica, we encountered our first iceberg and had visits from several Humpback whales. The Micro-organism team collected some water samples from the ocean and started to analyse them in the temporary onboard laboratory they had recently set up. The team from the light project had the opportunity to focus their lasers on a small block of glacial ice, and this gave rise to new ideas for the air pollution project.