Hello everyone!
I’m sorry I haven’t been posting since Christmas, but a lot has
been going on, so let me fill you in on the details.
First, after Christmas I was busy focusing on my final exams
for my hanyu, kouyu, and xiezuo classes. As such, I wasn’t doing anything
particularly interesting other than studying. I had a very quiet New Year
celebration in my dorm room because I had to study for exams the next day. I
have to say I’m glad they are over, and that I’m enjoying my month long
vacation very much.
Before I get into that, let me give you all a basic idea of
what the next few blog posts will be like. The first one, is going to be about
my trip to Harbin, a city in northern China. The next post will be about my travels
to Xining, the capital city of Qinghai province. After that I will be taking a
break from posting about travels because I currently have a cold and will be
resting in Beijing in an extremely boring manner. My next post after the one about Xining will be sometime
after February 6th, and will be about my stay in Shanghai, where I
will be celebrating the Chinese New Year with my mom’s friend Chang and her
family, who graciously invited me to stay with them. After I return from
Shanghai, I will be preparing for the next semester, and as such the next set
of posts will be weekly like before, because I should have more to write every
week at that point. Now, on to Harbin!
After I had my last exam I had one day to pack for Harbin. I
went to Harbin with nine other girls, all foreigners like me (two Germans, two
Italians, a Japanese, a New Zealander, a Singaporean, a Finish girl, and two
Americans [me being one of them]).
At the Beijing train station we waited in line to go through
security. While waiting, I said hi to a two year old baby girl who was
adorable, and her dad told her to say “Hello” to the nice “aiyi.” Now, assuming
most of you don’t know, “aiyi” is a term which means “aunt,” a term I have
found is usually used for 40+ year old women here in China. Seeing as I am currently 21,
people would typically call me “da jie,” which means “older sister,” rather
than “aunt.” I must look too mature *sigh.*
After going through security, we found where our train was
leaving, and decided to get dinner before boarding. So, seeing as everywhere
else was crowded, we bought burgers from McDonalds. I would like to note that
this was the first time I have eaten a burger, let alone McDonalds, since
leaving the USA. And it was delicious! It tasted like home; beefy, filling, and
satisfying.
Once we got our McDonalds dinner, we boarded our train,
which would take ten hours to arrive in Harbin.
Here’s some pictures of our soft sleeper room:
(Some random guy who was taking pictures of us because we're foreigners)
(Dinner, yum)
(You might not be able to make out what this is, but it's Red Bean Pie, a sweet dessert found at McDonalds here in China)
(our upper beds)
(Laura)
(My bed)
Harbin is a city located in northern China, is moderately
close to Russia, and is known for its cold temperatures and famous ice
festival. It’s mostly a tourist site for Chinese people rather than foreigners,
so while we were there most people assumed we were Russians due to being close
to the boarder. For basic information about Harbin, I now provide the following
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbin
Here’s a picture of where it is on a map (from Wikipedia):
(The red is Harbin, the orange is Heilongjiang Province)
We arrived at about 6 am, and the temperature outside was -21
degrees Celsius (that’s about -7 degrees Fahrenheit). We all woke up early and
bundled up before heading outside though, and walking around always gets the
blood pumping. We were hungry, so we all went to a “xiao chi” restaurant (“xiao
chi” is a place which serves small meals like Chinese buns and dumplings, porridge,
or other similar foods). Needless to say, ten foreign women (seven of which had
very distinct looking western features), walking in to a restaurant in a city
which does not see many foreigners caused a bit of commotion. The laoban (boss)
was extremely excited to see “so many pretty foreign women” in her restaurant, and
the waiters and chef were also trying to get a good look at us too. The laoban
put us in a back room since we were such a big group, and then she and one of
the waitresses brought out their cameras and asked to take pictures of us. We agreed,
and there were lots of flashing lights. Then she asked if she could be in the
pictures with us. We agreed, and the next thing I knew she jumped over one of
the girls sitting near me and sat in my lap before smiling at the camera. My brain
wasn’t fully awake until that moment. The waitress to the pictures of us, and
the laoban jumped away to tell the cook our orders. The food itself was very
good, and probably the best baozi (buns with meat and/or veggies) I have had
since I’ve been here in China. Honestly, I think the food tasted much better in
Harbin. It tasted significantly less greasy than food in Beijing. But that’s
just my personal opinion.
I don't have any pictures of the place, but I do have a small video:
I don't have any pictures of the place, but I do have a small video:
After getting breakfast, half of us walked to the youth
hostel, while the other half took a taxi. I was with the group that walked. The
hostel was very nice. It was clean, warm, and the beds were softer than my dorm
bed (yay!). There was also a cat there. It sometime went outside though and
would then start meowing for people to let it back in (if I were a cat I wouldn’t
go out in -21 degree Celsius weather, that’s too cold when you only have a thin
layer of fur!).
Here's some pictures of our walk there:
(Christianna, the girl who was in charge of all of us, and who organized the entire trip. Thank you!)
Here's some pictures of the hostel:
and their cat:
After we settled in at the hostel, we went out to do some
exploring. First we went exploring around the local area. At this time in
Harbin, there are ice sculptures everywhere you look. Some of them are kind of
silly, but others are pretty impressive. We think that the festival is mainly sponsored by Harbin beer, because there were quite a few sculptures of Harbin
beer bottles around the area.
Picture Time!
(Coins for buttons?)
(Christianna with her monkey hat)
(Me with a violin)
(Yes, in these next two pictures we are eating ice cream. There's a famous brand which is really creamy and tasty, so we got some. Plus we were already surrounded by ice, why not eat some?)
(An ice maze!)
(from inside the ice maze)
(from outside the ice maze)
This is a snow amusement park:
We then decided to go see St. Sophia’s church in the Daoli
district. For some more information, here’s a link with some history about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Sophia_Cathedral_in_Harbin
I also ran into a friend from PKU, Piotr, who I had no idea
was in Harbin at the same time as me. He is currently studying at the same
university as my two German friends, Kim and Teresa, in Germany (he’s actually
from Poland though).
We then walked around some more, admiring buildings, etc.,
until we got hungry, and ate at a really great restaurant.
Here’s some pictures of our lunch:
After that we returned to our hostel to get ready to see the
major ice festival. We were picked up by a bus at our hostel, and then after an
hour or more on the bus, we arrived. And what we saw was like an ice version of
Las Vegas, only without the gambling, heat, oh you get the idea.
Anyhow, enjoy the pictures!
(All ten of us bundled up!)
The next day we got up bright and early to find breakfast,
and eventually found a baozi place. I’ve never had so many different kinds of
baozi in one sitting, but man were they good!
Picture time!
(breakfast: a baozi filled with veggies and noodles. Yum.)
After breakfast we decided to walk around town, and
eventually walked on the Songhua River to Sun Island, and I mean that quite literally.
The river had about a meter thick layer of ice, making it quite safe for us to
walk across and jump on it (further down the river there were horse drawn sleds,
and they were doing just fine so we thought we would be fairly safe).
Here’s some pictures:
Once we got to Sun Island, I found this lovely Chinglish
sign (hooray for translations!). But seriously, I have no idea what this was
supposed to be:
This next one makes more sense though:
After that we walked around the island, enjoying the scenery
and such. We also saw a cool looking temple, but it was closed so we could go
see it. Here’s some pictures though:
When we walked across the river back to the city, we also saw a man ice fishing. He cut a large hole in the ice and then dropped a net down, which he would then pull up with fish:
(The guys carving the snow from earlier finished!)
After crossing the river we went out to find food, and went
to a lovely restaurant with great dishes. While there, we noticed that some
people’s water bottles had frozen (my one friend Lisa had frozen tea), but the
centers had remained slightly liquid, so they had literal ice cups:
After lunch we split up into different groups. My group went
off to see the bird, fish, and flower market. It wasn’t as impressive as I thought
it would be, so I didn’t take any pictures. I did see a man plucking a pigeon
in the street though. We then walked through a very dirty part of Harbin. We
think it might have been the transportation district, with lots of factories
and the like, because the snow was black. Everywhere. Once we left that area we
went back to St. Sophia’s to rest, drink some coffee, and then meet up with
everyone else for dinner.
Pictures!
We decided to go to a hotpot restaurant, which was a lot of
fun. We also met up with two other students from PKU who just arrived for the
ice festival. Their names escape me at the moment though.
So Many Pictures!
So Many Pictures!
After dinner we returned to our hostel to grab our back
packs (since we were there for only two days all we packed were a backpack’s
worth of clothing), and headed to the train station for a ten hour long trip
back to Beijing.
Hi Kate,
ReplyDeleteHave been enjoying your record of your trip so much! Thank you for all the pictures and the lovely narrative. Best, Stephanie Dack (your dad's former student whose kids you always so kindly entertain when we visit in the summer time).
Hi Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you're enjoying my blog! I didn't realize how many people were reading it. I'll probably post the next set about my trip in a few days. I still have to organize all the photos though. ^.^
I'm looking forward to it! -Stephanie
ReplyDeleteWe love seeing China through the eyes of your camera -- Remember to get in front of the Camera too -- I, of course, love the photos with you in it. Harbin must have been so incredible to see and feel (even when you went down on the ice ^_^)
ReplyDeleteMiss you
hi my i say thank you i have been number of time to Harbin to ice and snow festival i was unable to go this year but photo and video have brought it home to me it seem that you had a great time
ReplyDelete