Solo Snowy Night in a Weird Ali Express Tent

It's snowing! I wasn't expecting this today to be honest, but it's starting to settle. Also seems to be starting to slow, but it's been on and off, so we'll see. Be nice to have a bit of snow, but I'm getting wet. I've got a weird tent for you today. It's a weird AliExpress tent. Now, I did that Timu tent a while ago, and it turns out Timu saw it, and they emailed me and they sent me a refund for the tent because it leaked and was rubbish. I mean, I feel a bit bad because I was expecting it to do that, but I thought I'd spend the money. I spent it on AliExpress. I've got a weird tent, so I guess let's have a look at it. This is it. Pretty big. This isn't a dirty protest. I've not judged it just yet. It's called like a lung box or loing box. I don't know. I'm gonna go with a lung box. Sounds like kind of one of them respirator things. I guess we'll have a look at it. Where's the zip? Interesting. Before I fully pull that out, it's like a pop-up tent. I'm gonna look to see if there is any instructions. I've got a lot of Sony instructions, and it looks like I was pretty much doing it right, though I don't speak Chinese. I'll pull out the sides, then the top. All right, give that a go. Ah, you gotta pop them. This is exponentially growing. I'm inside. I can't see a way of popping the roof one up without actually doing it from the inside, so hopefully I may have to peg it first. We'll see. Yeah, simple. So as you can see, I've bought a Martian pod or a moon base. It's like a geodesic pop-up tent, which is quite clever really. I just have to shift it into position, peg it out, see if I can get it more taut and stuff, and we'll see. Look, it's got snow skirts, and it is snowing. Well, just about now. Maybe it'll snow later. We'll get to test that out properly. And this is winter camping in the UK. Everything gets muddy. Let's have a look at the pegs and guys we get with it. Fancy, but they are just straight ones, which aren't fantastic, but they're big. So it looks to be I could either gyre from the rain skirt or these tabs underneath. I'll probably choose these tabs. Get that nice and tight, and I'm right by a rock. Right, she's pegged out, so she's not going anywhere. So I think we should have a little look around it. Got three vents around the outside with mesh behind. Oh, and there's also three vents around the top. Oh, that's the muddy one with mesh behind as well. So you can get circulation of air. I guess you could... Well, there's actually four around the outside, I guess, because the door was stopping another vent down the bottom. I guess you could convert one of these to make it a hot tent, but I've got another way of heating this tonight. Hmm, tabs on the inside. I wonder if they meant for an inner. This is the inner though. I'm assuming the other bit's the outer. We'll find out in a minute. If not, you could run lines to dry clothes, stuff like that. Oh, all the snow's melted. Let's have a look at the door. We have a mesh inner door and normal outer door as well, and it does have a lip here. Not too bad actually. Oh, snowing again. So many aeroplanes today. Maybe they've seen this UFO and they're looking for it. I'm guessing this is the outer, which I think is just like a rainfly for the top looking at it. Maybe. Maybe it's a flaw. Wind's coming from this side, so that might help me. Yeah, not just a pretty face. So I'm looking at the pictures on the website. Not one of them show an outer on. That buzzed. And yeah, I don't really want to ruin the style of it. The thing is, it is snowing. Do you think it'll hold up? I might leave it as is and put it on if I absolutely have to. Sorry, just watching the fly past. Yeah, so I might test fit it so I know what I'm doing. Okay, so I've determined it's not an outer. It's not a rainfly. This is it what you get. So fingers crossed. This must be a flaw. Instructions would help. Can you hear that? Snowing pretty hard again. Right, I'm going to get a bed set up in here, I think. Looks like there's room to do that. All right, let's get the cot bed out. Well, it's holding up to snow. What about if it melts? Right, let's get this bed together. So I've got a very weird sleeping bag to try out today. I'm going to do a separate video on it on the review channel, but I'm not going to show you it just yet. I'll give you a sneak peek later. But you're going to love it. Got my little table with me. I can go down over here for now, and here is the reason for that. I've got my gas stove, and not just for brews and stuff, because I also have my tent heater, which I can't remember if it even fits on here properly. Ah, yeah, it's fine. So it's just as well, really. There's so much ventilation in here, because you don't want to use a gas stove inside your tent without kind of ventilation. Probably advised we'll not do it at all, but I think I'll be okay. It is still coming down out there. Got a good coverage now, and on top of the tent as well. So once this tent heats up later and the snow melts, it's going to be a test to see if there's any drips. I do like it, though. It went up very easily once I knew exactly what to do. You just have to pull out every panel, basically, and it pops into place. We'll see how well it goes down tomorrow, and it's probably going to be wet, or snowy, or who knows what. Now I suppose I should get some firewood, because it's going to get pretty cold soon. I've got a little stash nearby, but it's not going to be enough. Now this will come down in a storm, so I can just take from it. Snow's getting pretty heavy again. Oh, it tired me out. I may have to go get some more, but the sort of snow howl mix was coming down a bit heavier. If I'd save the camera and the saw. Every time it snows, it then melts a bit, and it's making everything very muddy, and then it snows again. That's my wood prep done. It's cooling down a bit now. I've stopped being active. I can probably chill for a little bit before I light the fire now. An hour till it starts getting dark, and I suppose I could set up bed and stuff, though you're not allowed to see the sleeping bag yet. There's no actual hanging point here, but I can hang off of the frame with the light. Well, because my truck's not all that far away, and I had time, I thought I'd go get my chair. It's my big comfy one. Well, all set up with time to spare. That doesn't seem to happen all that often. I could get more firewood, but I don't think I'm going to be outside all night. I'll retreat inside the tent and try out the tent stove heater, which I have used before in the cardboard tent a while back, but got some nice cooking coming up. Got two Mexican dishes, dinner and then breakfast, so I'm looking forward to that, and the second I sit down, the snow starts again. I can always sit inside for a minute. Whenever I'm outside, I've got a little robin friend hanging around. It's been a while since I've had a robin hanging around when I'm camping. It's just hopping around out there, curious creatures. I would say I'll try and film him, but I'll never get it. We'll see how close he comes. I might have a cup of tea to warm myself through before I light that fire. I'm just getting some fire lighters on this fire lay. I need to try and keep this fire off the ground a bit because it is cold and wet. Well, we're outside, fire's lit, snowing a little bit on and off. It's not so much right now, might as well take the hood down, and yeah, I'll stoke this fire up, get warm, and then I suppose I'll cook my Mexican dinner. Fire's going good. I'm right next to it, getting some heat here, but it's beer time. I've got a neck oil. Of course I have. Cheers, everybody. Oh, that's cold. It's a refreshing beer. I need to build a fire reflector in this spot. I use this spot quite often because it's one of the only flat spots in this woodland, and you've always got a prevailing wind from a field up on that side, and especially in winter when there's no foliage. All right, it's time to start dinner, and first off I've got to get the skin off of these, soften them up, and I'm going to put them on the coals to do that. Fire's been going a little while now, so I've got quite a few coals, so I'll just break some up over on this side and stick the chilies on them. All right, I think it's time to take these off. I've got the hood up because it's quite windy, so stopping that chill. They're off the fire, and I've covered the bowl, let them steam away for a bit. That's going to make the skins easier to come off and easier to manipulate them, get the seeds out for the next stage. I've got some really thin steak slices, but they're not thin enough for what I want to do. Now I've got a tenderizing hammer thing at home for doing this dish, but yep, didn't pack it of course, so it's going to have to be my plate. I've got my chilies here, and a spoon and a knife, and I'm not worried about cross-contamination because it's all being cooked. Start it off with the knife, and you should be able to use the back of a spoon to help scrape off the skin. Now I'll only show one of these, or it's going get a little bit boring. Still snowing, likely, so I'll get this off. That's the skin off, so I'm just going to take off the stalk, cut on one side, expose the inside, and I'm just going to scoop out the seeds and the membrane there, making a little bit of space. Okay, so that's the chilies all done and deseeded. Some come out better than others, and this is halloumi, which is quite similar to a kind of queso blanco type cheese. What I want to do is stuff them with pieces of cheese about the same size, like yay, and then we're going to wrap them in the beef. Now I've cut some strips of beef to about the right size, and get your chilies and wrap them into little parcels. Thinner the better. This is not thin enough really, but hey-ho. Now I wanted some cocktail sticks to help hold these together, but I didn't have any, and neither did the shop. So I'm just going to wrap these up and save them for in a minute. You're going to have some off cuts of cheese and beef. Don't worry about it, throw it in, fry it off, it's going to be fine. So all I've got here is some onion, garlic, and sweet pepper, and I'm just going to chop them up, and that's going to be for like a salsa and a sauce, and we'll get that on first before we fry off our beef chili cheese stuffed treats. I'm going to fry off my onion and pepper first, give that a good stir. With them softened up, I'm just going to put some garlic in there, just give that a minute or so. I've got some passata there, and some seasoning, and I'm going to put some hot sauce in, I just have to find it. Just cook that down a bit. It's time to fry these off. Some of mine are falling apart a bit there, but not to worry, it's all in there. I'm just going to pour over your sauce, and that's going to ensure that gets cooked through. I'm not going to lie, mine have come unraveled. It's easier in a kitchen. Now you don't want to overcook that beef. Might not put it all on the plate just yet, but everything is there, and just a little bit of coriander makes it. Well, it may not be pretty, but it's going to taste pretty good. I've done this before, and it looked a lot better at home. It's a lot easier to do at home. Get that beef nice and flat, put some toothpicks in, hold it all together, and don't move it around too much when you sauce it. Oh, it's a spicy one. There's a flavour explosion. Takes a little bit of prep, but you know, these things are worth it. Wowee, that was hot. I've left a couple of the peppers, they were hotter than the last time I made it. I've got quite a runny nose. It's definitely time for lubrication. Tingly mouth. Really nice though, really good. You can use maybe padron peppers or something if you don't like spicy, though that's a bit of a roulette. I'll do it with bigger sweet peppers. But yeah, that was nice. We'll retreat to the tent in a bit out of the cold. Still getting flurries of snow, but nothing to speak of. The heat from the fire is kind of going into the tent and melting what's on top a bit. But yeah, it'll be interesting to try out the tent heater in there. Well, I've got that heater on the gas stove there, turned it right down, and I can feel it already, really quickly. A bit easier than lighting a wood stove. Not as fun though. But yeah, I can feel that already. Gonna start hearing the snow dripping off. There's a few points I'm a little concerned about, but they're lower down for dripping, I mean for ingress we'll see. But I'm pretty comfortable. Nice and big in here. I could have had my big table as well, but I didn't need it and I would have had to carry it. But yeah, I suppose I'm gonna have to show you my sleeping bag in a bit. But I'm gonna enjoy a vent just to stay safe. Having a bit of problem with gas here. They're a bit cold, but alternating them one warms up while the other one cools down. Seems to be working. I'm gonna try and boil some water on the top of this heat diffuser thing. First time I've had my hat off in ages. Well, it worked. It didn't take too long actually. Oh, nice hot chocolate. So I'm gonna have this and then I suppose I'm gonna have to show you the sleeping bag. And here we go. I can put my hands and feet away. I would not recommend having the hood done up. I can wear boots as well. And yeah, it's a full body suit. I saw it and I had to. So this is me tonight. It's gonna be extremely strange. Sorry, that's as far away as the camera can be from me. But uh, I don't know. It might be okay. I'm feeling quite warm now, but then I've got the heater in here. But uh, I suppose I'll say goodnight from the spaceship tent. Good morning. It's very cold. I've got a runny nose. Oh dear me. I had trouble with the gas canister last night, or two of them, and was alternating them so one could warm up while the other one was in use. And I had a third one so I slept with it and that's given me a nice boost of heat. Let's see who seems to be going down now. Them canisters aren't great in the winter. But yeah, I had some weird dreams last night. I also heard, or at least I think I heard a tree come down. I definitely did because it woke me up. It was over in that direction so I have to investigate. Luckily it wasn't on me. But yes, it's a very cold morning. The snow, there's only a little bit left out there. A little bit of a sunrise. But um, I was thinking of cooking on the gas stove for breakfast but I just don't think it's going to cut it in this cold so I think I'm going to have to get the fire going again. Some smaller bits. Got some more firelighters. Could have broken these down a little bit smaller but I'm cold. Still cold. Still see a little bit of that sunrise as well. Well the fire's going. As the gas has kind of died down or cooled down to the point that it's just not doing much. I'll get warm and I should make some breakfast I guess. Can't stay here all today unfortunately. Nice Mexican breakfast though. You'll like this. I've got some prep here to do and that's going to be an onion, some garlic, got some lime, some coriander or cilantro, whatever you'd like to call it, and from a tin some tomatillos. I'll start off by dicing up the onion pretty finely. The garlic here doesn't actually have to be that fine because I've got pieces of garlic. This should do. I've got my pestle and mortar. I'm going to put some garlic in there. I'm just going to put in some salt and pepper to help it along and start grinding that to begin and a little bit of green chili pepper. Not too much after last night. I'm going to start to add in the onion bit by bit. I'm going to start adding in the coriander or cilantro depending on where you are. Look at that beautiful green color in there. Now my tomatillos. I'll add them one at a time see how many I need. It's very hard to get fresh tomatillos here in the UK and these ones they tend to be a little salty from the brine. Look at that coming together. Finally I'm just going to put in some lime juice and there we have our salsa verde mix. I'm going to warm my salsa verde through here and if I can fit this on I'll do some eggs to go with it. Right you can see I've got some tortilla chips in here so I'm just going to pour over my salsa and as this can be a breakfast dish I'm going to put on my eggs. A slice of lime and a little bit of coriander to serve. Here we go. It's looking good. Smelling good too. I first had this in a Mexican restaurant in Barcelona actually. My girlfriend ordered it. She likes it and it's very nice. That's one of them tortillas. Still a little bit crisp but also soft and I didn't overdo it on the chili. I can taste it but didn't overdo it. I'm done. Did quite well. I suppose I'd better pack away. I wonder what this tent's going to be like. We'll see in a sec. Big tents are lovely when you're in them and can warm them as well and stand up in them but getting them home and drying them is another story. Definitely a bit of condensation in here but I guess I've got to do the reverse which will mean popping down the top. Splashed with the condensation and then going around the outside. Looks like a flower doesn't it so I've got to close it down a bit I guess. Check that out. I actually went back in the bag. There wasn't much of a weather test. I mean it stood up to melting rain on it but I've not had it out in the rain. I quite liked it though. There's a few points I'm a bit worried about in the rain but I'll have to try that another time. Right guys I think I'll leave that here because I've got a couple of trips to go with my gear. Thank you very much for watching and hope you enjoyed that. See you next time. Goodbye.