Into the Middle Kingdom- Harbin

Hello again!  Wow, is it hard to find time AND a good wireless connection in China!  My trip is over tomorrow, 6 March, and here I am finally able to post something about our awesome trip to Harbin, in the northeast area of Manchuria.


I'm figuring that I will upload a post for each city visited from here on out.  So please read the captions of each photo to get all the scoop.  And please stand by for more to come in the next week.  Thanks!

The scene from our hotel room.  Note the Russian style of architecture...you'll see it again!

This was taken from the Dragon Tower, apparently the second highest observation deck in Asia.  An interesting cityscape the shows the frankly overall blandness of the city, several million strong.

The Siberian Tiger Preserve.  When I get the chance I will upload an awesome video of these guys in action.  For now, suffice it to say they were huge...glad I was in the bus!

Here is the main reason we came to Harbin, the Grand Snow Festival.  Best done at night, though the temperature was well below freezing!

Another great example of the festival.  This is all ice, with LED lights built into the blocks, and the lights flash and change colors, too.

An example of the scope of these sculptures.  Early on in the festival, you could walk under them, but at this time they were roped off, though we could still get very close to them.  Really cool (heh heh).

A very sober but important stop in our tour, the Unit 731 Museum.  Unit 731 was a Japanese medical unit that performed chemical experiments on prisoners and local citizens.

Yes, the heavy political bent of demonizing the Japanese was in full force.   This is not to say that the Japanese did terrible things here...they most certainly did.  But the spin on the issue is unmistakable.  This statue was created to show the two faces of the Japanese; on the right, the smiling business gentlemen, and on the left the ruthless smirking military officer.  

Another stroking example of the museum's agenda.  I had to snap this photo of these very cute Chinese children reviewing this diorama and video of what is reportedly an example of the chemical weapons experiments performed on hapless Chinese by the Japanese aggressors.

So here is some beauty after those serious museum photos.  St. Sophia's cathedral downtown, very nice on the outside, and a good shot with some birds flying.

But hold on!  What's this inside St. Sophia's?  Turns out the inside of the cathedral has been completely left to waste, with several junk stands and a small museum about life in Harbin in the 1920s replacing the stately cathedral adornments.  At least Jesus is in here somewhere, through perhaps the Lenin nesting dolls are a little more prominent.

Finally, a little shot of Center Street, with plenty of Russian and other European architectural influence.  And so ends our trip to Harbin...cold and old and broken down in so many ways.

Cheers!  See you in Xi'an, next post.