Blogs from Harbin, Heilongjiang, China, Asia

Our longest train journey yet started from Irkutsk on the weekly train to Beijing via Harbin. The train was one of the newer ones and this time we had a cabin all to ourselves for two days or so. Settling in we realised there was little to do except check out the scenery or read. I decided to catch up on sleep and let Dave get his fill of scenery. When I woke, Dave let me know that there had been plenty of trees and then as the sun rose we were given a lovely view over lake Baikal which the train followed around the southern end, As I had slept for a couple of hours we were nearing the last sight of the lake. From here the train turned east to skirt Mongolia before headings ... read more

A common denominator of Japan and China is leadership that denies shameful moments in history. Japanese leaders Ishihara and Nagoya remind me of two museums I visited on my trip to Harbin in 2009. The Germ Warfare Museum and the Harbin Jewish Museum offer two separate accounts of the Second World War within the same city. Harbin, China's Ice Festival town bordering Siberia once had a thriving Jewish Community. In 1937 the Japanese Army set up a prison camp for experimental torture similar to Joseph Mengele's work in Auschwitz. All the while it appears that Harbin's Jewish hybrid looked the other way. Was there any mutual support? What are the lessons learned? Last week Tokyo's Governor url=http:/... read more

A much delayed blog: Less than 6 days after I got back from a 5 week long excursion to Vietnam and Philippines with the (relatively) warm balmy weather I was off again, this time to the opposite temperature extreme: Harbin (or Haer'bin) to see the Ice Festival. The train was booked so I headed down to the train station. No english spoken or written anywhere so I was left to my own wits to figure out where to go. The first problem was that my ticket was all Chinese and I couldn't even tell any of the information aside from date and time (numbers). The second problem was that everything in the train station was also in Chinese. Not even sure what I was looking for I tried to match anything on the ticket to any ... read more

Hi All, Brought tears to my eyes today. What can you say? Mankinds cruelty knows no bounds. The horrors of what the Japanese did in World War II are on full display here. The museum is very informative and interesting, how much do you know about the Japanese invasion of China, but it does seem to harbour a little resentment and doesn't really give out a message of forgiveness. The disgusting war crimes commited by the Japanese shouldn't be forgotten but at the same time they should be forgiven. Most of the personnel that worked here, I use that term loosely, escaped trial because of the USA's thirst for knowledge on biological and chemical weapons. if any of you are unsure as to what happened here follow the link Enjoy the photos and Jah bless http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit%C3%A0_731 ... read more

Hi All, Another Chinese city and another zoo. It was a bit more of a safari park than a zoo really. Boy are those cats big. One even attacked the minibus we was in. It was good to see these animals but again the ones that were in the cages didn't seem to have that much room. It was extremely cold again today and I gave up wanting to walk around because I lost the feelings in my feet. Enjoy the photos Jah Bless... read more