Chinese New Year Travels Cont. (Harbin, Changchun)

The day after Terri, Angela, and I returned to Beijing after flying in from Shanghai, we tried to go to the Great Wall. After receiving some dodgy information, we believed that we could go to a particular parking lot and find a personal driver to the Great Wall for only 200 yuan. After going to this parking lot and asking around, we soon found out that we had been misinformed (although we did arrive quite late in the morning). Anyway, we decided instead to go check out Tianamen Square and later that afternoon Terri and I went to the Temple of Heaven in Beijing which is a Buddhist Temple. Later that night Terri and I went out to a couple of clubs. One of which a Chinese man insisted on dancing with me, but I declined. Terri attempted to order two whiskey shots with coke as a chaser, but the bartender did not understand that she wanted them separate from one another and not a whiskey and coke, so that took about 10 or 15 minutes. Anyway, I had an absolutely amazing time with Terri, and wish she was still here every single day...sigh. Miss ya, babe!

The next morning I decided to take the Great Wall tour offered by our hostel. Angela, Jon, Fabian, and Sasha took the same tour the day Terri left China so I had to take it by myself, which was fine with me. An American named Rob and I was picked up by a van full of people (Germans, Swiss, Americans, British, etc.) and we were handed sandwiches and juice, which was apparently our breakfast that was included in the package. It was on the Simayan (unsure of spelling) part of the wall which is the best reserved and least renovated part of the wall outside of Beijing. There's no good way to describe it. Just an amazing work of human design. We hiked about 10 kilometers which took about 3 1/2-4 hours. The best part was at the end when our tour guide set us down and said, "OK, we can either go down the fast way or the slow way. The fast way will take 30 seconds but the slow way will take 20 minutes." No one said anything, so I said, "It doesn't matter to me." No one still said anything and I said, "Shall we take it to a vote?" Finally our tour guide said, "OK, come with me." He led us to the fast way...a zip cord across a reservoir. I said, "I'll go first." but then the Germans ended going before I did. It was awesome and we went down at a pretty substantial speed. Anyway, I'll steal some of Angela's pictures and put them up here.

Angela and I ended up staying in Beijing longer than we should have because we were trying to find seats on any train to Harbin. Harbin is without a doubt one of the most popular travel destinations in China, so during the Chinese New Year, good train tickets to Harbin are extremely hard to come by. After finally convincing Angela that we were not going to find seats to Harbin, we elected to buy standing-only tickets. Eight train ride...not so bad, right? Well we didn't think so at first. We got on our train with plenty of time, sat around the dining hall and got comfortable. As soon as the train started moving, we noticed there were tons of open seats. Pleasantly surprised, we took two of the open seats. "This is great!" we thought. We purchased standing-only tickets, but we found some really nice seats that were unoccupied. After 20 minutes on the train, someone came around to check our tickets. We thought it odd before, because usually your ticket is checked twice even before getting on the train. Anyway, the woman checking our ticket took one glance at our tickets and then gave the most sour expression ever. We thought we were in trouble for taking seats when we had standing-only tickets, but she quickly took the ticket of a Chinese guy sitting next to us and compared his ticket with out ticket. The tickets were for different cities, different trains, and (barely) different times. WE HAD GOTTEN ON THE WRONG TRAIN. The full shock of this realization had not hit us before the train maid (?) held up a finger signaling she would return in a little while. Angela and I looked at each other in total shock and amazement. How had we done this? We figured out there were two trains leaving the same platform within five minutes of each other and we just hadn't bothered to check which train was actually ours. Angela and I go over all our options while freaking out, we text people who can tell us where the city we are headed actually IS relative to the city that we actually were intending to go. Finally, the conductor, who speaks decent English, comes and communicates that both trains will stop in the same city...but, we have five minutes to run six platforms to get to the train we were supposed to be on. So as we were getting close, we were rounded up by the train maids and we waited anxiously by the door. As soon as our train stopped. We ran towards the platforms. As we were running I noticed our train maid was wearing high heels because of the steady clicking noise. Finally, we got to the platform, completely out of breath and realized we had time to spare. The train maid explained our situation to a conductor on the other train, we thanked her, and entered the train. It was extremely crowded but we found a little nook on the dining table and dealt with a very annoying, spoiled, Chinese boy who wouldn't shut up for the next four hours. BUT, we WERE happy we got to sit for the first four hours.

Oh, only if that were the end of our troubles in getting to Harbin! As we left the train station in Harbin, we found it next to impossible to get a taxi. Taxis were waving us off or simply just passing us even though they were unoccupied. Finally, an employee (who was shortly followed by three businessmen) all tried helping us. Interpreting the address of our hostel and finally getting a hold of the hostel. Through broken English and some Chinglish, the three businessmen offered to take us to the hostel, free of charge. Now I have been here long enough to be weary of too-good-to-be-true offers, but I also consider myself a good judge of character. These men had already gone out of their way to help Angela and me, and they seemed to have completely charitable intentions. Not knowing where our hostel REALLY was, Angela and I accepted the offer. These men ended up being really kind and wanted to converse as much as possible (as much as the barrier would allow them). They all worked at IKEA and gave us business cards before they helped take our luggage out of their car at the hostel. When we arrive at the hostel in the middle of the day, it is completely dead. No one is around except the reception and maids. The place is dark and cold. Because of the season, Angela and I had been forced to occupy this hostel the first night in Harbin because all the other hotels were booked until the next night (oh, and this is the ONLY hostel in Harbin). Our room is freezing cold and way below par compared to the hostels we've stayed at. Anyway, we make due and get the hell out after the first night. The most hilarious part about that hostel is that most people only stay one night because it is such a terrible, terrible place. What's more, according to hostelworld.com the hostel was started by a woman who had traveled a lot and has had a range of hostel experiences...so don't you think she would try to make her hostel not a total piece of crap?

Shortly after arriving at our hotel (which, actually cost just slightly more than our hostel), we were met by our friend Daniel and his friend Craig. If you remember from earlier posts, Daniel is our Scottish friend who taught in my city, but he moved to Changchun (close to Harbin) at the end of last semester. Daniel's friend Craig came to visit him and try to find some work in Shanghai. In Harbin we walked the streets and admired all the ice sculptures. Harbin, by the way, is the most populated most Northern city in China. Every year they for the Chinese Spring Festival they build what they call Ice City. They wait until this gigantic lake is frozen and literally cut blocks of ice out of it to build a life-sized city of ice. The pictures tell the entire story. There were slides made of ice which we went down a few times. Further inside the city, though, ice sculptures line the main streets. Harbin also has an incredible amount of Russian influence on architecture, food, and culture. We definitely had some amazing Russian cuisine while we there. But, as I mentioned before, we had a tough time getting taxis. We once spent half an hour trying to hail a taxi but none of them would take us because according to our friend Daniel, the Chinese of Harbin hate the Russians. We never got a clear answer as to why this is, but Daniel asked a taxi driver why the Chinese hate Russians (this taxi driver actually refused to take us at first, but I just jumped in anyway because I did not give a crap, and after learning that we weren't Russian, he talked Daniel's ear off) and the taxi driver said, "It is not polite to answer such a question." We think that it might be because the Russians are rude to the Chinese but we're not sure.

Other than seeing Ice City, we also saw Siberian Tigers in a reserve outside of Harbin. We went in an armored bus, Jurassic Park style, through the reserve seeing the tigers (there was actually a place for Ligers (tigers + lions) which I didn't even know actually existed outside of Napoleon Dynamite. Anyway, at the ticket office of this reserve, you have the option of buying various livestock to feed to the tigers. Chickens, sheep, and yes...even cows. Unfortunately cows were 1500 yuan, so we elected to go with the chicken that was 40 yuan. At one point during our tour, our bus came to a stop and a heavily armored car came and stopped to the side of us. The driver quickly opened the door and threw out a chicken on top of the car. As soon as that happened, a tiger jumped on top of the car and bit into the chicken and started tearing its feathers out. Not as gruesome as I would have hoped but it was definitely cool.

Other than that, we ate a lot of amazing Russian cuisine in Harbin.

While in Harbin, Angela and I decided to make a side trip to Daniel's current place of residence in Changchun which is the capital of the province almost directly below Harbin. There was really nothing too special about Changchun, but we had fun. Like most other current capitals in China, it had an ever-increasing foreign population (Changchun is especially known for its Korean population) and increasingly modern (read: Western) take on culture and entertainment. We did go ice skating, which was my first time and I only fell once! I was quite proud of myself.