Saturday morning was one to just take it easy, and a small group of us wandered around town and spent our time being lazy and eating food while another part of our cohort decided to go to a weird "Russian-style village" on the outskirts of town. It turns out that this was the strangest place in the city and I didn't miss much. And I'm perfectly okay with that.
We had arranged for the hotel to bus a small group of us from the hotel to the Russian village, pick up those that partook in the weirdness, and then head to the Ice Festival a few minutes up the road. However, as we were waiting at the meeting time (3:30pm), we were informed we weren't going until 4:00. The group at the village was waiting to be picked up at 3:45. Remember, it's nearly -20 at this point. Then the hotel piled us into a van with 8 other Chinese people, which left no room to pick those up at the village, and we finally left at 4:10. Then we made a 10 minute pitstop for no clear reason. After we kept on going, we passed by the village and kept driving to the Ice Festival. The 8 Chinese people got out, and as we started to, our bus driver said we couldn't and that we had to wait until our friends were with us as a group. So, tempers were starting to get testy. This is about 4:35. So the 4 foreigners piled back into the van, huffing with frustration, and headed back to the village. But we couldn't get into the village because there had been a traffic accident at the entrance and the people involved were in the middle of a fistfight (yes, this happens semi-regularly... I'll write more about traffic rules in coming days/weeks). So we had to go around to the back entrance, 5 minutes away. Finally we arrived after 5pm. The group at the village had been waiting outside in -20 degree weather for nearly 90 minutes and NO ONE was happy about it. Let's just say the driver (and later, the hotel manager) got an earful from a collection of us on the way to the festival.
That being said, we had a great time at the Ice Festival (even though the prices had risen by about 60%) and didn't lose any toes or fingers to frostbite. The pictures are up on Facebook, but I'll try to add some here later.
Sunday, the final day in Harbin, was a little less than amazing, but was still good. I had acquired some sort of fever-laden cold overnight and tossed and turned and didn't really sleep. But we took it easy, had a lazy morning lunch as we got ready to check out, hit up the Saint Sophia Cathedral (which is now a pictorial museum of local Harbin history, as the Cultural Revolution destroyed much of the church's interior... you can still see the Revolution bullet holes in the walls), then headed to the airport to come home.
I didn't exactly catch up on my sleep, and I was actually home sick from school on the following Monday, but I've recovered in time for me to jetset south. I start the journey on Sunday night as I hop on the overnight train to Beijing, then head to the Tianjin airport to fly down to MALAYSIA! Then Singapore, northern Thailand, Laos and Cambodia are on the itinerary for the next 5 weeks. I'll write more about the crazy recent weeks tonight or tomorrow. Right now, I'm winding down the final minutes of my last invigilation of the semester and I'm free as of tomorrow afternoon! More soon, but in meantime (and as always), much love everyone. Hope the new year has found you all full of high hopes, aspirations and full of love for 2011.
T
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