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China 2

Goldenmaggot
2005-09-08 18:14:08

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snow and ice and that includes the schools and universities.

There is a great system here at traffic lights. When you arrive and the lights are red there is a 60 seconds countdown so you know how long before the lights change. It is the same when the lights turn green so as you approach the lights you know how many seconds you have before the lights change. This is a great idea and it would, I think, save a lot of feelings of frustration with drivers.

We went to the Swan Hotel for lunch. On the menu was chips. We all got very excited to have chips and they soon disappeared.

The indoor market was closed to day so we visited St. Sophi'a. A Russian Church. This is a typical Russian, onion domed church. Inside, the walls were full of old photographs of Harbin. There were lots of pictures of white Russians. Interestedly there was only one picture of a Chinese and that was a picture of a coolie. I took a picture of a model in the church and then discovered that no photography was allowed!

Outside I took a photograph of a bush that had pink pieces of paper stuck on to make it look like blossom. We have seen quite a few bushes done like this and the pieces of paper are always pink.

Tonight we have a Russian banquet. Having sampled Russian food in the past I do wonder what 'banquet' will mean!

Minus our thermals we left the hotel for the Russian Banquet. Walking the 200 yards to the restaurant from the coach we felt very cold without our cold weather gear on. It is minus 30 tonight and I realised how my cord trousers and thermal long johns had protected me over the last few days.

The whole time I was in Harbin with temperatures of -25 and -30 I never felt cold. Unlike the UK it is a dry cold and our thermal gear, hats, gloves and scarves were enough to keep us nice and warm.

The meal was superb. Lovely white fresh bread, caviar, soup, goulash, beef, chicken and pork dishes. Everything was very tasty.

The Chinese hotels run a very good system for e-mailing home. All the hotels have a business centre and for a very small amount you can type up and send an e-mail home. The receptionist changed over the typing from Chinese to English. I was tempted to send home an e-mail in Chinese!

I left all my postcards, 30 in all, at the reception desk of the Hotel with the money for postage. Only 3 of those cards arrived and I suspect that the bell boy or someone in the hotel pocketed the money. We had all been trying to buy stamps for our postcards home but could'nt find any.

The Ice Festival at Harbin is superb all of the 16 in our party thought it much better than they had expected. The ice and snow carvings are beautiful and much bigger and better than we imagined them to be.