back from Harbin

So, we got back from Harbin early this afternoon, still alive, with all fingers and toes. Our trip to Harbin is really too much to write about in one blog post, so I'll just be brief and then write more later when I feel like it. First, our experience in Harbin was fascinating, incredibly aggravating, but above all very interesting. Do we regret traveling with a Chinese tour group? No. Will we ever do it again? Probably not. In order to decrease the stress of our last vacation where we just showed up in some city and had to find a hotel etc, we decided to do more planning ahead of time and book things through a travel agent. Our agent however, one-upped us and signed us up for a 4 day, 3 night tour to Harbin, where practically every element was taken care of for us. I discovered however, that while feeling total responsibility for logistical planning is very stressful, having your time and money totally in the hands of someone else with no input is also almost as equally stressful, especially when some of those people don't seem quite that competent. The combination of a particularly incompetent tour guide and a large percentage of tourists with a very flexible definition of punctuality meant we spent probably as much time sitting on a tour bus as we did actually seeing the sites. By the end of our final day, we were basically left with Mutiny on the Bounty. However, it wasn't completely a nightmare, and we did get to see a fair amount of Harbin, which is a really interesting city, especially with the ice and snow festival (so if any of you find yourselves in Northern Manchuria in the dead of winter with nothing to do...). In fact, traveling with a Chinese tour group was interesting an interesting experience and it was neat to see China from a Chinese tourist perspective (if that's at all possible). To be brief, the first day we arrived we had free time, then the second day, we went skiing and, somewhat unwittingly, up to the top of a freezing cold mountain peak. The third day we saw the snow festival, ice festival, winter activities, and stores. On the fourth day, we left in the morning. The skiing deserves at least its own post, as does the ice festival/snow festival/details of the tour, so I'll just write a little bit about Harbin and the weather.
Harbin, as I pointed out is in Norhern Manchuria and is the direct recipient of Siberian winds, so needless to say it is cold in Harbin. The third day we were there the high was -19 degrees C and the low was -27, though it was a little warmer the first day. While that seems really really cold, I was surprised that it wasn't as unbearably cold as I thought it might be. As Dan can attest, I packed as though we were heading to northernmost Siberia, and it turned out I really did bring too many woolly socks and sweaters. It didn't help that people in Qingdao are wimps, and wear two layers of long underwear when it gets below freezing, so I was told to expect more than the worst. That isn't to say that I didn't have to layer up: I never wore fewer than 2 layers of fleecy long underwear or 4 shirts or sweaters, less than two pairs of wool socks, and was never out without a hat, scarf, and muffler. I also wore my teacher's knee length down coat which she lent to me (she herself is from Harbin). It was incredibly stylish, with the down as a layer that fit into a black sheath. I also bought a pair of stylish black snow boots with a fake fleece lining in Qingdao for about 8-9 dollars, so I felt like a fairly stylish sausage wandering around the streets. On the whole the cold was manageable, though it was really hard to keep my feet, fingers and nose warm. Basically, they would stay cold until we got back to our hotel room and then only thorougly thaw about three hours later. It was interesting to see what Harbin residents wore though. Most walked around in down coats with hats and scarves, though few people had the scarf wrapped around their face. I wonder, does a nose get used to the cold? Maybe that's the case, because some people seemed downright crazy, walking around hatless, scarfless, and glovelesss with merely a leather jacket. On the plus side though, it really wasn't that windy and it was sunny everyday.
Also, while in Qingdao, people may think I'm Russian, but in Harbin, I got greeted with "dos vadanya" (sp?) almost as often as hello. In one dumpling restaurant, the waitress took one look at us and immediately handed us a helpful Russian menu (luckily it also had Chinese). I guess that's not too surprising, since Harbin was was controlled by the Russians until 1930 and still has a large Russian minority. There were also lots of Russian import stores (including one that we visited with our tour, spending almost as much time at as we did the snow sculpture park, a major point of soreness among all of the people in our tour, including myself and Dan). Another less cheesy Russian influence is in the architechture. Harbin is full of very graceful yellow buildings built by the Russians, and it makes what might be a fairly drab city have a lot of character and charm. I suppose one could also point out that the concrete apartment blocks are also a Russian influence, via that wonderful influence of Stalinist architecture. And speaking of Stalin, one of the most prominent parks in Harbin is named "Stalin Park."
Well, that's it for now, but I (and Dan) will post more later.