Hello all! As I mentioned at the end of my last post, this past weekend was Labor Day here in China, so we had the whole weekend plus Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off of school. So, Kate, Hannah, John and I went to Harbin! Harbin is really far north and super close to the Russian border. It is mainly known for its ice sculptures and snow lantern festivals during the winter, but they obviously didn't have those anymore, so we explored the spring version of Harbin instead!
We left Friday night and arrived in Harbin early Saturday morning. After checking into our hotel, we explored the surrounding area and was pleasantly surprised to see that we where two blocks away from one of the main attractions in Harbin, St. Sophia square. This square is named after a beautiful Eastern Orthodox church built on the square.
Surrounding the square was a lot of neat shops an Chinese malls. After grabbing something to eat and exploring the square a bit more, we took a cab to the other side of town and visited the 731 museum. This was a memorial dedicated to the victims of Japanese Battalion 731 who was stationed in Harbin during WWII. During the occupation, the Japanese used healthy, unwilling Chinese citizens to test chemical weapons and other germ warfare. The museum was really interesting, and thankfully not very graphic.
The next day was probably the most fun we had the whole trip. It started off with us stumbling upon an underpass that was lined with cure little shops selling all sorts of trinkets and whatnot. Also, this cool mannequin was there:
I couldn't resist.
After the awesome underground mall, we went to......the Siberian Tiger Preserve!!! Yep, you read that right. It was AMAZING. I hope you all have seen Jurassic Park, because it was exactly like that, except we where in a bus instead of a car and actually inside the area where the tigers where. I apologize in advance here because there are a lot of pictures of tigers.
It was a necessary pose
Who wouldn't want to ride a tiger?
First glimpse of a tiger from the waiting area.
Just like Jurassic Park.
Inside one of the tiger areas
He was a curious one.
African Lion
Another cool part of the park (and something they would never do in America, thanks PETA) is that we got the chance to feed live animals to the tigers. So of course we did it. There was a choice between a couple of animals including a chicken, mountain pheasant, sheep or even a cow, if you're willing to drop 2800 kuai. We chose the chicken.
It looked sickly anyway.
The keeper put in in a cage...
...wheeled the cage out over the tiger pen...
(notice them staring up hungrily at it)
...opened the bottom of the cage and
then that chicken became this guy's lunch.
Though it sounds kind of traumatizing to watch, the whole thing was actually pretty cool. And now that's one less chicken that can spread bird flu. You're welcome, China.
The keeper teased this tiger with a hunk of beef.
And then he looked so sad that we where
almost tempted to buy it for him. Almost.
They also had a Leopard,
a Cheetah,
a Liger,
a Panther,
and this White Lion.
And who goes to a Siberian Tiger Preserve without buying a stuffed Siberian Tiger? Not this girl. Meet 小王(xiaowang- Prince)!
Ain't he a cutie pie?
So that night, we decided to wander around and see what we could find. We ended up stumbling upon what's called Central Street, which is just a huge pedestrian street filled with shops and restaurants and places to sit with a pitcher of beer and eat meat on a stick (a delicious Chinese pastime). Though it was kind of late at night, the street was chock full of people.
A Pitcher-of-beer-and-meat-on-a-stick place (aka 串 chuar)
The squad: John, Hannah and Kate
Almost every sign had Chinese, Russian and English.
At the end of Central Street, we also stumbled upon (we seem to do a lot of that) these cool boats that, for only 10 kuai, would take us on a 30 minute boat trip on the river that runs through Harbin. So cool!
The next day (Monday) we all slept in until about 10:30, found out it was raining, and so we just decided to hang out in our hotel room all day. We watched some Chinese TV (weird) and also a couple movies. It was pretty much just one of those days that you expect to have on vacation. That night though, we went out to the Robot Restaurant. This was a pretty cool place where you gave your order to a robot, then a robot chef cooked it and another robot carried out the dish and stopped at your table where a human waiter would then hand you the food.
Though the robots where pretty cool, the food was actually the best part of the place. Tuesday we went to a park called Taiyang dao (which means Sun Island) and explored that area for a while. At that park, I was painfully reminded of how short Chinese people are when I smacked the top of my head on a girder while walking up some steps. Here's a picture of me with the offender on our way down the same steps:
After spending a while at Taiyang Dao, we went to a coffee shop along Central Street called Maan Coffee, Toast and Waffles. We think it was their opening day or something because everything was half price. Woo! So Hannah and I split a BLT and a chocolate waffle (most delicious thing ever).
Because we were pretty tuckered out after wandering around all day, we ended up spending 5 hours at Maan Coffee. During that time, John taught all of us how to play Euchre! Dad, I know you've tried to teach me multiple times before, and I never really got it. But now I know how to play! So Goebel family, at the next family gathering I'll be seeing you all at the Euchre table....maybe.
Tuesday night we went out to a club called Box Town. It was super nice and really big and we met a couple really cool people. On person we met was a Russian who was from Siberia. And the night ended with John and me playing fussball with two guys from Angola. How cool is that?! I was partners with Mario, and though we lost to John and Jaelzeman, it was still a lot of fun.
On Wednesday, we checked out of our hotel, wandered around some more, got Russian food for lunch (pretty much just a giant plate of mashed potatoes) spent another couple hours at Maan coffee playing Euchre, and then got dinner at a Korean restaurant. Then, with a heavy heart, we boarded the train to head back to Beijing. All in all, Harbin was a fantastic, beautiful city and there was nothing that I would change about the trip.
P.S I know this is super random, but please don't try to mail me anything from here on out. We only have 4 weeks left here and I might not get the mail before it's time to leave.
